Award-winning actor Wesley Snipes today added a less prestigious line to his resume: Bureau of Prisons inmate No. 43355-018.
Snipes, best known for his roles in the “Blade” trilogy, surrendered shortly before noon today at a federal prison in Pennsylvania where he will serve a three-year sentence for failing to file his taxes.
Snipes, 48, was convicted in April 2008 of three misdemeanor counts of willful failure to file income taxes and has spent the last two years unsuccessfully trying to appeal the ruling.
But the wait is over for Snipes, who was required to hand over his street clothes for a prison uniform as he settles into his new home at the McKean Federal Correctional Institution in Lewis Run, Pa.
Snipes will end up in the adjacent satellite minimum security prison camp, according to Federal Bureau of Prison spokesman Edmond Ross.
Ross said Snipes was processed “without incident” and is going through inmate orientation before being assigned a bunk.
Larry Levine, a former 10-year federal inmate and founder of Wall Street Prison Consultants, said Snipes is certainly going to one of the nicer prisons, one often dubbed a “Club Fed.”
“‘McKean the dream,’ that’s what we call it,” said Levine, who served time most recently at a federal detention center in California for a securities conviction and has reportedly advised criminals as high-profile as Ponzi-schemer Bernie Madoff.
“It’s a nice place, but it’s definitely not like checking into a hotel,” said Levine of the camp, which houses about 290 white-collar male criminals in dormitory-style living quarters.
Snipes and his lawyer did not return several messages left by ABCNews.com, but, when asked during an interview with CNN’s Larry King if he was nervous about going to prison, Snipes said, “I think any man would be nervous.”
“Given the length of time that they are suggesting that I be away from my family, away from my profession, away from my ability to provide for my family and for those who have depended upon me to contribute to society…I think anyone would be nervous about that,” said Snipes.
Snipes said he’s “more upset and disappointed” that the system “doesn’t seem to be working” for him. He said he doesn’t believe he deserves the time behind bars.
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