Blade Star Wesley Snipes Released From Prison

Wesley Snipes, star of the Blade trilogy, was released from a federal prison in Pennsylvania earlier this week after having served nearly two and a half years of a three-year sentence for tax evasion. News broke today that the actor was released Tuesday. A Bureau of Corrections spokesperson said on Friday that Snipes will be overseen by the New York Community Corrections Office until July 19. Reports indicate that he's under house arrest, but in a government-run residential facility designed for that rather than his own home. The actor, who belonged to a group that challenged the government's right to collect income taxes, reportedly failed to file returns for at least a decade and owed millions of dollars in back taxes. He had appealed, saying that he didn't get a fair trial and that his sentence was overly harsh for a misdemeanor, but the Supreme Court refused to hear his case. In addition to the misdemeanors of which he was convicted, Snipes was acquitted of felony charges of filing false returns and attempting to defraud the IRS. The film Snipes was shooting at the time of his conviction, Gallowwalker, is set for release later this year.