Lauryn Hill gets 3 months in prison for tax evasion

• Tweet

A federal judge sentenced Lauryn Hill to three months in prison for failing to pay nearly $2 million in taxes.

Hill, who must also pay the $1.8 million she owes, plus a $60,000 fine, said she planned to pay the taxes but that it had come down to a matter of when.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Madeline Cox Arleo told Hill she didn't get to choose when to pay -- Hill pleaded guilty to to failing to file tax returns for 2005, 2006 and 2007 -- and ordered her to report to federal prison on July 8.

The former Fugees singer told the court she lived "very modestly" relative to the amount of money her music and 16 million album sales ahd made for others.

"Someone did the math, and it came to around $600 million," she said. "And I sit here before you trying to figure out how to pay a tax debt? If that's not like enough to slavery, I don't know."

"This wasn't a life of jet-setting glamour," she said. "This was a life of sacrifice with very little time for myself and my children."

A prosecutor for the U.S. attorney's office said the sentence also took into account tax losses and income from 2008 and 2009, when she also failed to file tax returns.

Hill confirmed last month she had signed a new record deal, and was working on new music, the first since her 1998 "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill."