No New Trial for Wesley Snipes

Wesley Snipes has to stay in prison. 

The federal appeals court in Atlanta rebuffed the action star’s attempt to demolish his 2008 conviction on tax evasion charges, saying Tuesday that there wasn’t "strong, substantial and incontrovertible evidence" to merit a new trial, The Associated Press reported.
 
Snipes’ lawyers said they received emails from jury members who reported misconduct among the jurors who found Snipes guilty of three misdemeanor counts of willful failure to file income tax returns.
 
One juror reportedly wrote that three other jurors determined the actor was guilty before the trial began – but the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Snipes’ request for a new trial, and indicated it doubted the veracity of the allegations made in the emails.
 
The district court judge who presided over Snipes’ 2008 trial previously denied a request by his side to interview jurors because of the alleged presumption of guilt, the Orlando Sentinel reported.
 
Snipes, 49, is probably best known for slashing vampires in the “Blade” trilogy. He also starred in “Demolition Man,” “White Men Can’t Jump,” and “To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar.”
 
Snipes last appeared in “Game of Death,” an action thriller set in a Detroit hospital, which was released in Japan in November 2010 – the month before he started his three-year prison term in northwest Pennsylvania.
 
Selected Reading: AP, Orlando Sentinel
 
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