T.I. Sentenced To One Year and a Day In Prison, Could Serve Less
As expected, rapper T.I. was sentenced to serve one year and one day in jail after pleading guilty to weapons charges, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. While federal sentencing guidelines mandated that Tip serve at least four years and nine months for his crime, the rapper’s legal team worked out an experimental plea bargain that allowed T.I. to stay under house arrest, pay a $100,000 fine and serve 1,000 hours of community service, with another 500 hours due after release. Having complied with the requirements of the plea bargain, T.I. was handed the one year and a day sentence today in an Atlanta courtroom. He was arrested in October 2007 for attempting to add guns to an already large illegal arsenal.
T.I isn’t expected to report to prison for another six to eight weeks, as commitments prevent the rapper from going to jail any earlier than May 19th. Despite the 366-day sentence, T.I. is only expected to spend 298 days behind bars. According to AJC, the plea agreement allows for the rapper to eliminate 15 percent of his sentence based on good behavior. The two weeks that T.I. spent in prison after his initial arrest will also count toward his prison term, reducing the length of the sentence even further.
“I expect the court will adopt and accept the plea agreement. I expect the court to acknowledge Mr. [Clifford] Harris has lived up to what was expected of him,” T.I.’s lawyer Dwight Thomas said. Since the plea bargain, T.I. has visited 25 states and staged 260 events to speak with thousands of teens and adults to encourage them to respect the law and avoid violence and drugs, logging over 1,006 hours in the process, court papers revealed. Rolling Stone followed a day in the life of T.I. as he hit the studio, schools and a basketball court last year.
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