Snipes Appeals Taxing Rap

Blade star seeks to slice three-year sentence for tax dodging

The Demolition Man is seeking to blow up his conviction.

As expected, lawyers for Wesley Snipes are appealing his February conviction on tax-evasion charges.

The actor's legal team yesterday filed a two-page declaration with the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Ocala, Fla., seeking to toss Snipes' guilty verdict on three misdemeanor counts of willful failure to file his income tax returns.

In February, a federal jury cleared the 45-year-old action star of two felonies and three misdemeanor charges but convicted him of the other misdemeanors. Last week, U.S. District Judge William Terrell Hodges sentenced Snipes to three years in a federal pen—the maximum penalty under the law.

Snipes remains free until the federal Bureau of Prisons sets a surrender date.