How to make maven check style plugin to ignore a file

[Albert Battle]

I have the following config but it does not work.  want to exclude
my.project.Someclass from being checked.

<plugin>
            <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
            <artifactId>maven-checkstyle-plugin</artifactId>
            <version>${version.maven.checkstyle.plugin}</version>
            <dependencies>
                <dependency>
                    <groupId>my.project</groupId>
                    <artifactId>project-checks</artifactId>
                    <version>${version.myproject.checks}</version>
                </dependency>
            </dependencies>
            <executions>
                <execution>
                    <id>checkstyle</id>
                    <phase>compile</phase>
                    <goals>
                        <goal>checkstyle</goal>
                    </goals>
                    <configuration>
                        <excludes>my/project/Someclass.java</excludes>
                        <configLocation>my_checks.xml</configLocation>

<includeTestSourceDirectory>true</includeTestSourceDirectory>
                        <failsOnError>true</failsOnError>
                        <consoleOutput>true</consoleOutput>
                    </configuration>
                </execution>
            </executions>
        </plugin>