After a long battle with the law, Lauryn Hill has finally received her sentencing in her tax evasion case. The rapper was able to pay back her 900,000 debt to the government earlier this week, and was thus able to soften her sentence, but will still serve 3 months in federal prison, as well as an additional 3 months under house arrest, and 9 months of supervision following release.
Hill pled guilty to 3 counts of tax evasion stemming from $1.8 million she earned from 2005 to 2007. She will report to prison July 8th, though it is unclear where she will serve her time at this point.
Hill made a statement at the hearing, equating her situation with slavery. "I was put into a system I didn't know the nature of. ... I'm a child of former slaves. I got into an economic paradigm and had that imposed on me," she said. "I sold 50 million units ... now I'm up here paying a tax debt. If that's not likened to slavery, I don't know what is."
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[UPDATE: Lauryn Hill sends out thanks to people following her sentencing.]
Lauryn Hill received her three-month sentence on charges of tax evasion three days ago. Since then, the singer has taken to Tumblr to write another letter, this time thanking the people who sent letters to the judge on Lauryn's behalf.
Read her full thank you below.
I want to extend a sincere thank you to the following people, who wrote letters to the judge on my behalf:
Linda Banks, Edison, NJ
Davonne Breedlove
Binna Choi, Beijing, China
Hafiz Farid, East Orange, NJ
Miriam Anne Banks Farrakhan, Union, NJ
Vincent Gardner, New York, NY
Michael Green, Fair Bluff, NC
Elitta Harden, Ft Worth, TX
Mrs. Valarie Hill, South Orange, NJ
Maureen Hogan, Jersey City, NJ
Walter Jones, New York, NY
Alicia Keys
Elena Lau, Toronto, Canada
Jerald Miller, New York, NY
Tracy Morris, Jacksonville Beach, FL
Elise Munoz, France
Bunmi Olukoya, Laurel, MD
Jimmie Pierre, Trenton, NJ
Cherisse Pittman
Gabrielle Fulton Ponder, Atlanta, GA
Dominique Reese, Oakland, CA
Chris Schwartz, Philadelphia, PA
Ashley Scott, Brooklyn, NY
Derek Singletary, Astoria, NY
Dr. Sara Tai, Manchester, UK
Suzette Williams, Teaneck, NJ
Lisa Willis, Philadelphia, PA
Stevie Wonder
Jonathan Wunderlich, Cabarete, DR
And thank you Jerald Miller, for taking the initiative to put this together.
I also want to thank all of my family, friends, business associates, and fans who have called, emailed, sent texts, and posted messages of concern, encouragement, and support. I appreciate the well wishes, and I thank you for your prayers.
Also, to anyone who may have written letters that we did not know about, thank you also, all of you.
I will have more to say soon, but did not want to further delay expressing my appreciation.
Thank you again,
MLH