Why was Beanie Sigel sentenced to two years in a Philadelphia prison?
Beanie Sigel has been in and out of Philadelphia jail cells a lot through the years. He’s consistently gotten himself into trouble, and he’s often paid a heavy price for it.
Beanie’s troubles with the law really began in the 2000s. He was arrested in West Philadelphia in 2002 and charged with a weapons offence, for which he later spent a year behind bars. This was by no means the end of his troubles.
The skilled rapper was arrested in early 2003, following an incident in which he allegedly punched someone in the face and ended up fracturing their eye socket. Later that same year he handed himself over to police in Philadelphia, whereupon he was charged with attempted murder. He had been accused of firing a gun at the door of a club, leaving two people injured.
The charges were serious: aggravated assault, simple assault and possession of a criminal instrument. It went to trial, but the first one led to a hung jury. The follow-up trial found him not guilty.
But this rough experience didn’t stop him from ending up in court again. The following year, in 2004, Beanie was sentenced to a year and a day in prison for a weapons charge. He also spent a brief spell in jail beginning in 2005 for failing to pay child support.
Another legal saga began in August 2009, after Beanie was arrested for drug possession. He’d been on the way to a gig in New Jersey, when he was stopped and discovered to be holding around 50 grams of weed.
The following year of 2010 saw Beanie get in big trouble again, and this one led to a big, two-year-long sentence. The rapper was accused of failing to file his tax returns, which was a serious offence in light of his high income.
Beanie had earned more than $2.2million from 1999 to 2005, for which he had paid only $10,000 in taxes. In total, then, the Internal Revenue service concluded that he owed a total of roughly $728,536. There was no getting out of this one.
Beanie admitted guilt, and he was handed his sentence of two years’ imprisonment. But before he was due to begin his sentence, he was pulled over and arrested in Philadelphia again on drug, weapons, and conspiracy charges. He entered jail in 2012 and got out again in 2014, before entering a Philadelphia halfway house for a spell.