Wesley Snipes is gonna's spend three hard years behind bars for tax fraud after being sentenced today by a Florida judge.

Snipes tried to get out of doing time by calling in favors from friends in high places -- Denzel Washington, Woody Harrelson, and TV's Judge Joe Brown filed testimonials about Wesley's character but even that was enough to keep him from going to jail.

In February, Snipes was convicted of three misdemeanor counts of failing to file a tax return. Maybe he has the same accountant as Britney!

Lucky for Snipes, however, he was acquitted today of felony tax fraud and conspiracy charges, otherwise he coulda been behind bars for 16 years!!!