REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
A federal judge in Manhattan sentenced rapper DMX to one year in prison on Wednesday for evading $1.7 million in taxes. The famed hip-hop artist, known legally as Earl Simmons, cried at the sentencing hearing as his lawyer, Murray Richman, described his unhappy childhood. In a letter to the court ahead of the proceeding, Richman had asked to play some of DMX's songs to help U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff understand the rapper “genuinely in his voice.” According to reporters in the room, Rakoff did allow one song—DMX’s 1998 single “Slippin’”—to be played at the hearing. “I wasn’t following the rules. I was in a cloud,” Simmons, who pleaded guilty to tax evasion charges last year, said in court. Rakoff said that the court recognizes that Simmons “is a good man” but also “his own worst enemy.”