The timing of two major reports on Haitian-born singer-songwriter Wyclef Jean from TheSmokingGun.com is extremely suspicious. Yet it might go far in wrecking his chances to become Haiti’s next president. Wyclef Jean owes the IRS $2.1 million dollars, TSG has learned.
According to The Smoking Gun, Wyclef Jean has exemplified laughable sloppiness in his bookkeeping and tax filings. In May, the IRS filed a $724,332 tax lien against Jean. Last July, the U.S. Treasury Department filed a $599,167 lien against the performer. And a $792,269 lien was lodged against Jean in July 2007. The liens cover taxes due on Jean’s individual 1040 returns for 2006, 2007 and 2008. Copies of the liens were filed at the Bergen County clerk’s office in New Jersey.
The Smoking Gun also came out with an explosive report about Wyclef Jean’s Yele Hait Foundation right after the cataclysmic earthquake in January that completely decimated Port au Prince. So the question to ask is: why did The Smoking Gun wait until Wyclef Jean’s profile is raised significantly before it drops these bombs in his lap? Were they just holding on to this information until Jean was in the news in order to maximize the damage and embarassment?
This is not to vindicate Wyclef Jean. Something definitely reeks out of the Jean camp. Check out these other reports. In 1998, Jean, who was born Nel Wyclef Jean, purchased a $1.85 million home at 8 Cameron Road in Saddle River, N.J., where he lives with his wife Claudinette and their family. The three IRS liens were filed against Nel W. Jean at the Cameron Road address. Other records show that Jean, 37, has previously been the subject of two smaller tax liens filed against him by the State of New Jersey and the New York State Tax Commission, both of which were eventually satisfied.
If there is one valuable lesson that Wyclef Jean has to understand, too many negative innuendos can cause irreparable damage to a promising career because image is a politician’s greatest asset. Once the image is destroyed, the politician’s career is over.
Just ask Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick of Detroit. She was never implicated in any of her son’s (former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick‘s) misdoings during the local and federal investigations and trial; and the same with her ex-husband’s trial for impropriety. Yet their misdeeds produced an awful stench that Detroit voters could not ignore. They voted Cheeks Kilpatrick out of office when she should have soared unopposed to her eighth term in Congress.
Looks like Wyclef Jean may never even get into office. –terry shropshire
