Troubled singer Lauryn Hill paid her overdue tax bill today, but that didn’t save her from doing a time in the federal pen.
USA Today reports that Hill was sentenced to 3 months in prison for failing to pay $1 million in overdue taxes.
Prior to the hearing, Hill’s attorney, Nathan Hochman, said in an email to TIME magazine Monday that Hill paid $970,000 to satisfy state and federal back taxes. Hill, but apparently that wasn’t enough for the judge.
Hill was also sentenced to an additional 3 months of home confinement to be served after she is released from prison.
Hill, of South Orange, New Jersey, pleaded guilty last year to evading taxes on $1.8 million income earned from 2005-2007.
In a statement to the judge, Hill said she planned to eventually pay her taxes but she was unable to pay during her self-imposed hiatus from show business.
“I am a child of former slaves who had a system imposed on them,” Hill told U.S. Magistrate Madeline Cox Arleo. “I had an economic system imposed on me.”
Hill, a follower of ganja smoking Rastafari, has 5 children ranging in age from 5 to 15 with Rohan Marley, the son of late reggae legend Bob Marley. She also has a 22-month-old son by another man.
In a Facebook post, Hill announced she recently signed a record deal with Sony in order to pay her taxes. Hill’s only album, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, was released on August 25, 1998. The album received rave reviews from music critics and went on to sell over 10 million copies. ‘Miseducation’ earned Hill eight Grammy awards.
She put off recording a new album in 1998 when she was forced to settle with a group of songwriters who sued her after she neglected to credit them in the liner notes of ‘Miseducation’.
When asked to provide written contracts to the musicians during the recording of the album, Hill reportedly said, “We all love each other. This ain’t about documents. This is blessed.”
Hill had always maintained that she wrote the songs on the album herself.
Let’s see how many years it takes Hill to record a new album for Sony.
Photos: Kena Betancur/Getty Images
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