As we mentioned last week, Philly rapper Beanie Sigel (pictured) is headed to the hoosegow, having been sentenced to two years for a variety of tax offenses. This is never good news for anyone, but in Beanie’s case, the timing is especially bad: Over the last two years, Sigel seems to have found a new relevance (his refutation of “swag” is kind of beautiful), settled a rap beef in the most civilized rap beef settlement of all time, and even got a new recording contract with Philly’s newly re-born Ruffhouse Records.

At the same time, though, it also seems hard to tell who wanted Sigel in jail more: The Feds, or Beanie himself. In U.S. Attorney Zane David Memeger‘s sentencing memo to United States District Court Senior Judge Jan E. DuBois back in April, the case was made that Sigel ignored every chance of staying out of jail. In addition, the prosecution argues that Sigel’s rap sheet should be taken into account, even going so far to allege that the government has no idea how much dough Sigel has stashed away.

The meat of the prosecution’s argument, which asked that Beanie Sigel get three years and got him two, after the jump.

[...H]e has utterly failed to cooperate with the Probation Officer’s attempts to determine his current financial condition. The defendant’s conduct in this respect is wanting, but even more so since the government expressly agreed to several continuances so Grant could earn money and, at the very least, make a start on paying restitution to the IRS. He has not done so. Grant has failed to file income tax returns for more than a decade, and after pleading guilty to a number of criminal counts for those failures has now demonstrated to this Court his continuing disrespect for the process of law by refusing to cooperate with the Probation Office. For all we know, Grant 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, a most basic part of the pre-sentence procedure.

However, Grant’s post-conviction behavior is no surprise, since it is merely consistent with prior post-conviction conduct and his overall poor criminal history. Grant began his criminal life at age 15, and now, 23 years later, he is again being sentenced. Grant has been adjudged a juvenile delinquent twice, has three local adult convictions for narcotics distribution, possession, and assault, and one federal conviction for narcotics possession and being a felon in possession of a firearm. After completing a year-long federal jail term, his supervised release was twice revoked for leaving the jurisdiction without permission, associating with convicted
felons and drug use. Grant was caught trying to fake his urine sample. PSI, par. 47. The defendant was found not guilty of attempted murder and other offenses in 2005. He has been arrested and charged with narcotics, assault, and weapons offense on five other occasions, all of which resulted in dismissal or the all-to-often-seen withdrawn for lack of prosecution.

Previously: Press Release Of The Week: Ruffhouse Reborn!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 18th, 2012 at 12:42 pm.