American Rapper DMX has been sentenced to one year in prison for tax fraud but insisted he wasn’t “like a criminal in a comic book” trying to scheme against the government.
Federal Judge Jed Rakoff played the song “Slippin” in court at the rapper’s request.
DMX who plead guilty last year for tax-evasion charges had engaged in a multi-year scheme to avoid paying $1.7 million in taxes, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Southern District of New York.
The 47-year-old performer, whose top songs include “Party Up (Up in Here),” stood accused of hiding money from the IRS from 2010 to 2016 — largely by maintaining a “cash lifestyle”.
The scheme included mostly using cash for all transactions and avoiding using a bank account in his name, even as he toured and sold records.
The judge said that in the court’s view DMX “is a good man. In many ways, he’s his own worst enemy.”
