U.S. prosecutors estimate that the rapper owes approximately $350,000 on $1 million of unreported income; He subsequently pleaded guilty to three counts of failure to file his federal income tax returns. Beanie will be sentenced on November 18, when he could get as much as three years' prison time.
His attorney, however, doesn't believe that the government's calculations are entirely accurate. "We intend to raise issues at the sentencing hearing which we believe will change those loss figures," Perri Jr. told MTV News. "We're going to ask the court to review our issues that we raised and our calculations, and it's our hope that those numbers will be successfully challenged at the time of the sentencing hearing."
Beanie Sigel, who broke out with his 1999 album, "The Truth", saw moderate success while signed to Jay-Z's Roc-A-Fella Records, but his career eventually dipped after he was sentenced to a year and a day in prison in October 2004 on weapons charges. Sigel would go on to release a total of four solo albums and become the head of State Property, a rap group and record label that he launched himself and that also spawned a clothing line and two films.
When Beanie Sigel got out of jail he secured a deal with 50 Cent's G-Unit Records, according to Beanie all he needed was a release from his Def Jam contract from Jay-Z, who happened to be the label president at that time. "When I first got out of jail, I had a meeting, a situation that was already lined up and set up where I could've had a deal over there," Sigel said of an agreement 50 Cent gave him "He wanted to give me a label, a whole label deal ... and a whole lot of money too." Beanie Sigel went to meet first with Jay-z, who hadn't communicated with the rapper during the year he was locked up. He was hoping that Jay-z would release him from his Def Jam contract in a move that would free the State Property rapper up to do business with 50 cent.But Jay-z didn't fulfill his request "I went to Jay like, 'Let me get this record deal situation,' and he was like, 'I can't let you go.' He was like, 'No.' He was like, 'Nah, let me see what I could do.' That 'see what I could do' turned into another two years."In the end, Sigel never signed with G-Unit, and by 2009, Beanie was launching dis rhymes at Jay-z after hearing what he interpreted as a subliminal attack against him on The Blueprint III album. Despite all that has gone down, Beanie reiterated it all on MTV's "RapFix Live" that he was appreciative of the opportunities Jay-Z and Dame Dash had given him while signed to Roc-A-Fella. Beanie alleges he never got a phone call from Dash or Jay-z saying that the Roc-A-Fella he knew was no more, and that left a sour taste in his mouth. And though Beanie acknowledged that during his run with the label, most everything was all good, he just refuses to gloss over the bad. Despite Beanie's grievances with Jay-z, the fiercely loyal Philly rapper admitted he owes the man his career. But Jay-z probably shouldn't hold his breath waiting for an official apology.
