RONALD ISLEY - ISLEY'S APPEAL TO REDUCE SENTENCE IS REJECTED

ISLEY'S APPEAL TO REDUCE SENTENCE IS REJECTED

Veteran soul singer RONALD ISLEY will have to serve his three-year prison sentence for tax fraud in full after losing his appeal for an early release. The Isley Brothers star, 66, was sentenced to jail in September 2006 after he was found guilty in 2005 of evading federal income tax payments to the total of $3.1 million (GBP1.55 million) between 1997 and 2002. America's Internal Revenue Service (IRS) accused Isley of hiding millions of dollars' worth of assets in various bank accounts and with family members. He began serving time in an Indiana jail in August 2007. But the Grammy-winning star took his appeal to a Los Angeles court earlier this year (08), arguing his sentence in an Indiana jail should be reduced on the grounds of poor health and old age, having recently suffered a stroke and kidney cancer. However, on Monday (11Feb08), U.S. District Court Judge Dean Pregerson denied Isley's bid for a lesser sentence, ruling the judge in Isley's original trial was right in sentencing and "best balanced the need to sanction Mr. Isley's 'pathological' tax evasion against the need to accommodate Mr. Isley's poor health".