Bail Conditions Set After Lauryn Hill’s Guilty Plea

(CN) - Singer-songwriter Lauryn Hill posted $150,000 in bail, agreed to undergo mental health counseling and shared her travel itinerary with the government after pleading guilty to not paying federal taxes on $1.8 million of earnings over 3 years.

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As reported by the Associated Press, Hill did not make a statement on June 29, the day she pleaded guilty to failing to report that she made about $818,000 in 2005, $220,000 in 2006 and $761,000 in 2007.

Instead, she released a long statement on her Tumblr account about those charges weeks before the hearing, which explained why she left celebrity life after her first solo album, "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill," snagged five Grammy Awards in 1998.

"For the past several years, I have remained what others would consider underground," the statement began. "I did this in order to build a community of people, like-minded in their desire for freedom and the right to pursue their goals and lives without being manipulated and controlled by a media-protected military industrial complex with a completely different agenda."

During this time, she raised her six children, five of whom she had with reggae-legend scion Rohan Marley.

Hill claims that mainstream press accounts twisted the reasons why she left mainstream music.

"I did not deliberately abandon my fans, nor did I deliberately abandon any responsibilities, but I did however put my safety, health and freedom and the freedom, safety and health of my family first over all other material concerns," she wrote. "I also embraced my right to resist a system intentionally opposing my right to whole and integral survival.

"I conveyed all of this when questioned as to why I did not file taxes during this time period. Obviously, the danger I faced was not accepted as reasonable grounds for deferring my tax payments, as authorities, who despite being told all of this, still chose to pursue action against me, as opposed to finding an alternative solution."

She is reportedly expected to elaborate on her statement at her sentencing hearing on Nov. 27. She faces up to three years in prison.

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