Local rapper Beanie Sigel sentenced to prison for tax evasion

The rapper Beanie Sigel was sentenced Thursday to 24 months in prison for failing to pay taxes for three years on more than $1 million of income.

U.S. District Judge Jan E. Dubois ordered the Philadelphia native to report to prison Sept. 12.

From 2003 through 2005, Sigel, 38, failed to pay more than $348,000 in taxes, prosecutors said.

Sigel pleaded guilty in August to failing to file federal income-tax returns for that period.

Prosecutors said he also failed to file tax returns from 1999 through 2002, during which time he failed to pay $380,459 in taxes.

Dubois ordered Sigel to pay all taxes, penalties, and interest as determined by the IRS. No final amount has been decided.

Prosecutors sought a three-year sentence for Sigel, describing him as a longtime criminal who has shown contempt for the law since he was a 15-year-old on the streets of South Philadelphia.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul L. Gray wrote in a sentencing memo that Sigel "has utterly failed to cooperate with the probation officer's attempts to determine his current financial condition."

Gray wrote that Sigel, of Lansdale, was allowed several continuances so he could earn money to begin paying restitution to the IRS. Sigel has paid nothing, Gray said.

"For all we know, [Sigel] has earned a significant sum of money and simply squirreled it away, out of the reach of the government. He would not even cooperate with the probation officer to permit a home visit," Gray wrote, "a most basic part of the presentence procedure."

Sigel previously served 10 months in federal prison for illegal gun possession. He violated his probation in that case and was sentenced to a day in jail and six months in a halfway house.

He was found not guilty of attempted murder in connection with a West Philadelphia shooting.

Sigel is best known for his song "Feel It in the Air," for starring in the movie State Property, and for his previous close association with the rap superstar Jay-Z.