'Blade' broke? Snipes will find low pay in prison

LEWIS RUN, Pennsylvania (AP) - The most jarring aspect of the celebrity's stay might be the five daily head counts, three during the overnight hours....

TheGrio Staff

Dec 9, 2010

LEWIS RUN, Pennsylvania (AP) — When actor Wesley Snipes enters prison Thursday, he’ll leave behind his wife, young children and celebrity neighbors in the wealthy Florida enclave made infamous by next-door neighbor Tiger Woods.

The prison camp in Lewis Run in northwestern Pennsylvania pales by comparison, but is still worlds away from the harsh prison fortresses depicted in the Snipes films “Undisputed” and “Brooklyn’s Finest.”

Federal Correctional Institution McKean, a minimum-security camp, doesn’t have fences around its perimeter. The 300 nonviolent inmates live in barracks that feature two-man rooms, daily showers and double-feature movie showings Friday through Sunday. Alas, no NC-17, R or X ratings allowed, which knocks out much of Snipes’ action-heavy repertoire.

The most jarring aspect of the celebrity’s stay might be the five daily head counts, three during the overnight hours. And Snipes, who earned a reported $13 million for the “Blade: Trinity” sequel, will have to adjust to earning just pennies an hour handling kitchen, laundry or other campus chores. And, he can spend just $290 a month at the prison commissary.

Snipes has appeared in dozens of studio films, from “White Men Can’t Jump” and “Demolition Man” in the early 1990s to the blockbuster Blade trilogy.

None of which will score him any points at McKean, officials insist.

“We recognize that he is high profile, but we treat all our inmates the same,” spokeswoman Shirley White told The Associated Press last week.

According to U.S. prosecutors, the actor failed to file any tax returns for at least a decade, and owed $2.7 million in taxes on $13.8 million in income from 1999 to 2001 alone.

Snipes, a dues-paying member of a tax-protest group that challenges the government’s right to collect taxes, described himself at his 2008 sentencing as a naive truth-seeker.

“I am an idealistic, naive, passionate, truth-seeking, spiritually motivated artist, unschooled in the science of law and finance,” said Snipes, who had pursued theater and dance from an early age, attending the vaunted High School for the Performing Arts in New York City.

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Tuesday night, he told CNN’s “Larry King Live” that he was not nervous about reporting to prison.

On Wednesday, he made a last-minute request for a new trial. In the emergency motion, Snipes said that the judge erred by not allowing defense attorneys to interview jurors about misconduct allegations.

At McKean, if he reports as scheduled, he can pursue his spirituality at weekly meetings of nearly any religious group imaginable, from Wiccans to Jehovah’s Witnesses to Spanish-speaking Evangelical Catholics.

The martial-arts enthusiast can get his exercise playing sand volleyball or indoor basketball, or work out on an elliptical machine or stair climber. And he can tap into his fun side through badminton, bocci or bridge.

Should he pull a muscle in a pickup game, the payment required at the infirmary is just $2.

But it’s not all fun and games.

The daily wake-up call is at 6:35 a.m. The mundane jobs run seven hours a day. There’s little fashion flair to the prison-issued khakis. And contact in the visitors room is limited to “a kiss,” according to the prison handbook.

Snipes has tried to delay his arrival while he takes his appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. But the trial judge said he had gotten a fair trial.

U.S. District Judge William Terrell Hodges saw in Snipes “a history of contempt” for U.S. tax laws, the judge said at sentencing.

Never mind that the actor, changing course, had delivered $5 million in checks to the IRS that day. Hodges imposed consecutive one-year terms for the three misdemeanor convictions.

“Someday, every fighter loses,” says the prison boxer Monroe Hutchens, played by Snipes, in 2002’s “Undisputed.” ‘’In the end, everybody gets beaten. The most you can hope for is that you stay on top a while.”