ORLANDO, Florida (AP) — Actor Wesley Snipes was ordered Wednesday to voluntarily surrender at a federal prison in Pennsylvania next week to begin his three-year sentence for failing to pay taxes.

The US Marshal’s Office ordered Snipes to report by noon on December 9 to the Federal Correctional Institution McKean in Lewis Run, Pennsylvania.

Snipes had tried unsuccessfully to remain free on bail while appealing his conviction to the US Supreme Court.

The 48-year-old star of the Blade trilogy was convicted in 2008 on three misdemeanour counts of willful failure to file income tax returns in 1999, 2000, and 2001. He was acquitted of five other charges, including felony tax fraud and conspiracy.

The prison is a medium security facility with an adjacent satellite prison camp for minimum security offenders. Bureau of Prisons spokesman Ed Ross said agency policy prohibited him from saying which unit would house Snipes.

Following his conviction by a federal jury in Florida, Snipes appealed to the appellate court in Atlanta. But the appellate court upheld the conviction and sentence.

Last month, Snipes’ attorneys argued a new trial should be granted because of testimony by Kenneth Starr, a former financial adviser to celebrities, who admitted during a plea hearing last September in New York to cheating wealthy and elderly clients out of tens of millions of dollars.

A judge rejected those arguments, writing that “the defendant Snipes had a fair trial; he has had a full, fair and thorough review of his conviction and sentence. … The time has come for the judgment to be enforced.”