MIAMI - A US federal judge on Thursday sentenced Hollywood actor Wesley Snipes to three years in prison Thursday for failing to file his tax returns from 1999 to 2004, the Department of Justice announced.

The Florida-based judge laid down the harshest possible sentence against Snipes, star of such movies as "Demolition Man" and the "Blade" trilogy of vampire movies, who was found guilty by a jury in February on three misdemeanor charges.

Snipes, 45, had sought to evade paying more than 15 million dollars in taxes to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), according to the department.

"Snipes' long prison sentence should send a loud and crystal clear message to all tax defiers that if they engage in similar tax defier conduct, they face joining him and his co-defendants ... as inmates in prison," said Nathan Hochman, an official at the US Department of Justice Tax Division.

"The law is very clear: people must pay their taxes," added IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman. "There is no secret formula that eliminates a person's tax obligations, nor are there any special exceptions."

The action hero first rose to fame in the 1980s when he was cast in the video for Michael Jackson's single "Bad".

That proved to be the springboard for a successful acting career characterized by his portrayal of tough-guy characters in movies such as "Demolition Man" and "New Jack City."

A martial arts fanatic, Snipes is famous for inserting quotations from Sun Tzu's "The Art of War" into his characters' roles.

Snipes also starred in "White Men Can't Jump" and Spike Lee's "Jungle Fever." - AFP/fa