WMBFNews.com | Myrtle Beach/Florence, SC | News, Weather, SportsJudge denies rapper's request for sentence delay
Member Center:
Associated Press - May 22, 2009 4:44 PM ET
ATLANTA (AP) - Rapper T.I. must report Tuesday to a federal prison at Forrest City, Ark., as previously ordered, a federal judge ruled Friday.
T.I., whose real name is Clifford J. Harris Jr., was sentenced to a year and a day in prison for a federal weapons charge. He asked a court Thursday to let him remain free while he seeks placement in a minimum-security prison closer to his Atlanta home, but that request was denied the next day by U.S. District Judge Judge Charles A. Pannell Jr.
Harris claimed prison officials miscalculated his criminal history in a pre-sentencing report that said he had a "serious history of violence." His lawyer called a 2003 incident a "scuffle" with a mall cop.
Lawyer Donald F. Samuel said he would continue to ask the federal Bureau of Prisons to re-classify the music star.
The rapper is scheduled to report by noon Tuesday to the Federal Correction Institution at Forrest City, Ark. He was fined $100,000 and sentenced to 366 days for trying to buy machine guns and silencers he said he needed for protection.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
