Rapper Ja Rule To Spend Over Two Years in Prison

US rapper and actor Ja Rule has been sentenced to 28 months in a Federal prison by a Federal judge for failing to file income tax returns. The sentence which was made on a three misdemeanor count requires the South-South Jamaica Queens rapper to pay up to $1.1 Million to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

Born Jeffrey Atkins, the multi-platinum selling rapper who hasn’t had it going good in the music scene for a while openly admitted and pleaded guilty in March 2011 for failing to pay taxes of more than $3 million that he earned between 2004 and 2006. Even though he had asked for four to five years extensions, Ja Rule still failed to file in the tax returns.
‘I in no way attempted to deceive the government or do anything illegal,” he said, minutes before being sentenced in a New Jersey federal court. “I was a young man who made a lot of money — I’m getting a little choked up — I didn’t know how to deal with these finances, and I didn’t have people to guide me, so I made mistakes‘, Ja Rule explains.
Ja Rule was also sentenced in New York City last month to up to two years in prison after he pleaded guilty to attempted criminal weapon possession.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Mack who has asked the judge not to let Ja Rule off with no jail time on the federal charges says ‘The court should impose the same sentence it would impose on someone who is not a celebrity‘.
‘My business is very ‘out of sight, out of mind,’” he told the judge. “The longer I’m away, the longer it’ll take me to get back to doing what I need to do to actually pay these taxes‘, Ja Rule asked for leniency from the Judge.
The rapper’s seventh studio album ‘Pain Is Love 2‘ is set to drop August 2011.