Sentenced: Lauryn Hill Gets 3 Months In Prison

Lauryn Hill was sentenced to three months in federal prison Monday for failing to pay taxes on an estimated $1.8 million in income.

U.S. District Court Judge Madeline Cox Arleo handed down the sentence in Newark, N.J., ruling that the Grammy-winning singer would have to complete an additional three months under house arrest followed by nine months of supervised release and ordering her to pay a $60,000 fine, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The sentence will begin the July 8, though it is unclear where she'll serve her time.

Hill, 37, pleaded guilty last summer to three misdemeanor counts of tax evasion, admitting that she intentionally failed to file tax returns in 2005, 2006 and 2007. She faced a potential prison sentence of one year for each of the three counts, but her attorney sought probation in the case.

Though Hill pleaded guilty for the time period between 2005 to 2007 when she is said to have earned about $1.8 million, her sentence also took into account additional income and tax losses for 2008 and 2009 and an outstanding tax liability to the state of New Jersey, for a total income of about $2.3 million and a total tax loss of about $1,006,517, the Wall Street Journal reported.

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Hill vanished from public life to raise her five children by Rohan Marley - the son of acclaimed reggae singer Bob - following the success of her album 'The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill' in 1998.

According to a story at ibtimes.uk.com, shortly before she was arrested last year, Hill penned a diatribe declaiming the music industry.

In the rant, Hill blasted pop music for a "climate of hostility, false entitlement, manipulation, racial prejudice, sexism and ageism.

"Over-commercialisation and its resulting restrictions and limitations can be very damaging and distorting to the inherent nature of the individual."

During her trial, Hill claimed she is still forced to live under the pernicious economic hierarchy imposed by the slave trade.

She told the court: "I am a child of former slaves who had a system imposed on them. I had an economic system imposed on me."

Hill became internationally famous in the mid-1990s as a member of The Fugees. The band's second album The Score sold almost 20m copies worldwide and spawned smash hit single Killing me Softly.

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