*One of two lawyers fired by Wesley Snipes last year during preparation for his tax fraud trial tried to rejoin the actor's legal team Monday, causing the judge to take immediate issue, reports the Associated Press.
The "Blade" star had fired his long-time lawyer Daniel Meachum in October citing ineffective counsel. At the time, Snipes claimed Meachum and his other attorney, Billy Martin, were too busy defending Michael Vick in the quarterback's dogfighting case to deal effectively with his tax issues. U.S. District Judge William Terrell Hodges at the time agreed to delay the trial but called the whole thing a ploy.
With Vick's case now a done deal, Meachum tried returning to Snipes' legal team, telling Hodges Tuesday that he withdrew from the case for medical reasons, not because he provided ineffective counsel. Hodges wasn't buying it. He said the earlier motion of "ineffective counsel" must have been fraudulent if this new medical related one is true.
Hodges gave Snipes' team two choices: Keep Meachum off the case and in the court gallery, or waive previous claims of ineffective counsel that could be important on appeal.
Meanwhile, jury selection was completed Tuesday afternoon and opening arguments were scheduled to began Wednesday. Snipes and two co-defendants were charged in an October 2006 indictment with fraudulently claiming $11 million in refunds on 1996 and 1997 income taxes already paid. The film star was also charged with failure to file returns from 1999 through 2004.
More than 60 potential jurors were questioned, according to the Associated Press, and five men and 11 women were eventually selected. None in the potential jury pool was black — of note because Snipes' attorneys tried to have the trial moved claiming the town of Ocala is racist.
Most in the pool had heard of the case, but not in depth, the AP reports. Only a handful told the judge they knew of the race claim, and one of those women made it onto the panel.