'Jersey Shore' star Mike 'The Situation' Sorrentino gets 8 months in prison for tax fraud

NEWARK, N.J. — Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino of "Jersey Shore" was sentenced to eight months in federal prison Friday for participating, along with his brother Marc, in a scheme to dodge taxes.

Mike Sorrentino will also have to serve two years of supervised release after the prison sentence is complete. Marc Sorrentino was handed a two-year prison term with one year of supervised release in the same hearing before U.S. District Judge Susan Wigenton.

The brothers were arrested and charged in 2014 with multiple tax offenses related to nearly $9 million in income. Mike Sorrentino pleaded guiltily in January to one count of evading taxes on about $123,000 in income.

Marc Sorrentino admitted to helping prepare a fraudulent tax return.

In handing down the sentence, Wigenton rejected the defense's argument that Mike Sorrentino was blinded by a severe drug addiction at the time he hid revenue largely earned from speaking engagements at nightclubs and bars to avoid paying taxes.

"Many of the things you did were very conscious," she said. "With celebrity comes responsibility."

Mike Sorrentino's attorney Henry Klingeman sought a sentence of probation, arguing that the crimes he pleaded guilty to rarely require time in prison and that his client had turned his life around after battling a severe addiction to prescription painkillers.

Prosecutors pushed for a 14-month sentence, for an offense that carried a prison term of between eight and 14 months.

"We're disappointed," Klingeman said, speaking to reporters outside the courthouse. "The good news is after so many years of investigation and this case being prosecuted, he can see the light at the end of the tunnel. He can put this behind him."

"Jersey Shore" cast members sat in the public gallery at the sentencing hearing in Newark.

Mike Sorrentino, dressed in a business suit, stood stoically as Wigenton read the sentence. He declined to answer shouted questions from reporters as he walked out of the courthouse with his fiancée Lauren Pesce and disappeared into a black SUV.

"The Situation" appeared on all six seasons of the show that ran from 2009 to 2012 and followed the lives of rowdy housemates in the New Jersey town of Seaside Heights.

'Age-old Hollywood story'

Sorrentino's celebrity and well-known battles with addiction were front and center in arguments made by both the prosecution and the defense before the court.

In the defense's telling, Sorrentino was the product of a broken home who quickly rocketed to a level of fame and fortune from the hit reality show that he wasn't able to handle, resulting in a life of poor choices including drug addiction and skirting tax laws.

"It's the age-old Hollywood story," Klingeman told the court.

But both Klingeman and Sorrentino himself told the judge that he had turned his life around. He's now been sober for nearly three years and has started speaking publicly to students and recovering addicts about the dangers of addiction.

"Today, I'm a man I should have been years ago," he told the judge. "I was inexperienced, uneducated and immature to handle everything that came with overnight success."

Klingeman argued that Sorrentino had become an "evangelist" of the movement to stop the scourge of opioid addiction, an epidemic that has ravaged communities across the country.

He also cited Sorrentino's appearance in the reality show spin-off "Jersey Shore: Family Vacation" contending that "The Situation"  has now become a "big brother" to the cast in contrast to the angry and aggressive drinker that was portrayed in the show's first run.

Klingeman told the judge that probation was a "typical, consistent and appropriate" punishment for the crime of tax evasion, for which Sorrentino had already pleaded guilty. In fact, he told the judge, he had never seen a defendant be sent to prison for tax evasion on a similar scale.

'Cheating' taxpayers

But prosecutors presented Sorrentino as a man who, while he was struggling with a drug addiction, was still fully aware that he was flouting federal tax laws and using his celebrity to do so. 

The two brothers created a number of companies designed to capitalize on Mike Sorrentino's fame. But the pair failed to pay the proper amount in taxes and took steps to conceal the money they earned.

Yael Epstein, a trial attorney with the U.S. Attorney's Office, presented evidence that Sorrentino repeatedly made cash deposits of less than $10,000 to avoid detection by the Internal Revenue Service, a tactic called structuring.

She commended the reality show star for turning his life around, but told the judge that his addiction wasn't an excuse "or even an explanation" for criminal conduct.

"He clearly maintained the mental wherewithal to go into banks and structure these cash deposits," she said.

At a time when he was making about $2.5 million each year and driving around in flashy sports cars, Sorrentino paid "next to nothing" in taxes, Epstein said. 

In pushing for a 14-month sentence, the harshest possible given his plea, she accused The Situation of "cheating" the reality show fans that helped make him rich.

"He refused to pay his fair share," she said.

Mike Sorrentino's sentence also includes 500 hours of community service, a $10,000 fine and $123,000 in restitution, which has already been paid.

Marc Sorrentino must pay a $7,500 fine along with an unknown amount in restitution, which is still being negotiated.

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