NEWARK, NJ — Rapper and actor Ja Rule admitted Tuesday that he failed to pay taxes on more than $3 million in income, and he faces up to three years in prison.

The platinum-selling rapper, whose given name is Jeffrey Atkins, earned the money between 2004 and 2006 while he lived in an upscale community in northern New Jersey.

If the plea conditions are met, the government will dismiss two counts against him for unpaid taxes on about $1 million he earned in 2007 and 2008.

Atkins is scheduled to be sentenced June 13 on the three tax evasion charges. He faces up to one year in prison and $100,000 in fines on each count.

Five days before that, he is scheduled to report to prison in New York to serve a two-year sentence after pleading guilty in December to attempted criminal possession of a weapon.

Atkins’ attorney, Stacy Richman, is expected to file to have the tax evasion sentence served concurrently with the weapons sentence.

Atkins appeared in U.S. District Court in Newark dressed in a brown leather jacket, pullover and blue jeans. He answered a series of questions from U.S. Magistrate Patty Shwartz and Assistant U.S.

Attorney Joseph Mack about his income from 2004 to 2008, which reached $1.59 million in 2005 and gradually fell to $490,000 in 2008.