Lauryn Hill Starts 3-Month Jail Term for Tax Evasion

Grammy Award-winning music star Lauryn Hill is now behind bars. The renowned yet reclusive musician reported for her first day in a Connecticut prison Monday, according to the Associated Press. The South Orange native is set to serve three months for failing to pay taxes on about $2.3 million earned between 2005 and 2009.

Hill is being held at the minimum-security Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury, said Ed Ross, a spokesperson for the federal Bureau of Prisons. 

The singer-songwriter gained fame in the 1990s with the hip-hop band the Fugees and in the film "Sister Act 2," but earned superstar status as a solo artist following the release of 1998's "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill," which went multiplatinum.

Last year, Hill pleaded guilty to tax evasion in federal court. Her attorney had asked for probation, citing as mitigating circumstances Hill's charity work for poor children, her role as the mother of six young children and her pre-sentencing repayment of all back taxes. The singer also stated that between the years in question she had dropped out of the entertainment industry because of mistreatment she said she'd received.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Sandra Moser argued that the circumstances cited were nothing more than "excuses centering around her feeling put upon" and that she still was obligated to fulfill her duty as a taxpayer.

When Hill is released from prison, she still will not be free. Her sentence calls for three months of home detention and nine months more under parole supervision.