United States Eleventh Circuit

Actor Wesley Snipes' convictions, after a jury trial, on three counts of willful failure to file individual federal income tax returns, are affirmed where: 1) because the general extension of the motions deadline by the district court could not have waived 18 U.S.C. section 3237(b)'s clear twenty-day deadline, the district court's denial of the five-month late elective transfer motion was not an abuse of discretion; 2) there was no abuse of discretion in refusing to grant a novel pretrial, post-grand jury hearing to challenge the claimed venue found in a facially sufficient indictment; and 3) defendant's sentence did not create an unlawful disparity because the district court noted that misdemeanants who, like defendant, had willfully failed to file their personal income tax returns, had engaged in similar behavior to the felons who had received similar sentences.

Appellate Information

• Decided 07/16/2010
• Published 07/19/2010

Judges

• Stanley Marcus

Court

• United States Eleventh Circuit

Counsel