Pleading Guilty for Gun Possession, Rapper T.I. Faces a Year of Imprisonment

Fri, 28 March 2008 00:00:23 ET

The Grammy Award-winning rapper has pleaded guilty for his illegal weapons possession charges on Tuesday (27.03.08) and may be sentenced to a year behind bars.

In the follow up to his October 2007 arrest on the illegal possession of weapons charges, it was reported that the multiple Grammy Award-winning rapper T.I. had pleaded guilty to the three federal weapons charges held up against him on Thursday (27.03.08). Reportedly, due to his plea agreement, the 27-year-old hip hop artist may avoid severe penalty and may walk out of it with one year behind bars.

Concerning the plea deal, the rapper's attorney David Nahmias explained that if the "What You Know" hitmaker sticks to his plea deal term, he could avoid the up-to-10-years imprisonment for each charges and may be sentenced to spend only a year behind bars, pay $100,000 fine and spend three years under supervised release which include home detention for a year as well as 1,500 hours of community service. The dropping of the sentence for the rapper whose real name is Clifford Joseph Harris Jr. itself won't be determined until next year as the sentencing is delayed to March 27, 2009.

Further, it was explained that while waiting for the sentence, T.I. Is ordered to perform community service for at least 1,000 hours. On the community service, Nahmias explained, "That (community) service will focus on using his high public visibility and his talents and life experience to tell at-risk young people about the mistakes he has made and to educate them about the dangers of violence, guns, gangs, and drugs."

In a statement, T.I.'s lawyer also stated that the reason behind the community service's focus was to tone down the crimes done by young people. The statement read, "If Mr. Harris (T.I.) performs as expected, his efforts and ability to reach and influence a large number of young people should prevent and deter at least some of them from committing crimes that endanger their communities and ruin their lives." Meanwhile, on T.I.'s own take, he revealed that he is not ready to be put behind bars saying, "While I'm not looking forward to being incarcerated, I have a long road of redemption to travel ... I am dedicated and committed to that."

T.I.'s run on with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives ignited back on October 13, 2007 when he was arrested at the parking lot of an Atlanta shopping center for possession of three machine guns and two silencers. Allegedly, the rapper tried to buy the unauthorized weapons though a bodyguard. He latter confessed that he possessed eight firearms. However, earlier he pleaded not guilty to the charges and has been put in house arrest after he paid a $3 million bond.

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