Ja Rule: More Jail Time

Ja Rule was singing a different tune as he was sentenced Monday to 28-months in federal prison for failing to file income tax returns.

The rapper and actor, who is already doing time on gun charges, blamed his failure to pay taxes on several million bucks and failure to file tax returns on a combination of being unable to handle sudden fame and fortune due to youthful inexperience. He also got bad advice, and his attorney said, when his business empire took a nosedive, fear made him unable to cope.

“I in no way attempted to deceive the government or do anything illegal,” Ja Rule said before his sentence, “I was a young man who made a lot of money — I’m getting a little choked up — I didn’t know how to deal with these finances, and I didn’t have people to guide me, so I made mistakes.”

Ja Rule asked the court for leniency, pointing out that the more time he has to serve, the harder it will be for him to repay Uncle Sam: “My business is very ‘out of sight, out of mind,'” he told the judge. “The longer I’m away, the longer it’ll take me to get back to doing what I need to do to actually pay these taxes.”

Last December when Ja Rule entered into a plea bargain on the gun charges, he took a far more nonchalant approach to the impending sentence, tweeting that it was a “minor setback for a major comeback.”  He started serving his sentence on June 8, 2011, and his wife told TMZ at the time, that Ja Rule was not broke and had made sure that she and their three kids would not suffer financially while he was away.

U.S. Magistrate Patty Shwartz in Newark federal court sentence said the 28-month federal sentence could be served concurrently with the New York state prison sentence. He was also ordered to pay $1.1 million in unpaid taxes.