Hip hop star Ja Rule turned himself in at a Manhattan courthouse this afternoon, and will now begin a two-year prison term on gun charges.
Before he went into the courtroom, the rapper signed autographs in the hallway outside. “See you in 18,” he said stoically, referring to his likely actual time behind bars, with good behavior. “One love,” he added.
Just before the cuffs went on in the courtroom itself, he waved his right hand and smiled bravely at a group of women, including his mom, and his wife and high school sweetheart Aisha, who both sat crying in the last row. “Love you!” they shouted.
“Love you too!” he called out as he was led to the pens behind the courtroom. He’ll likely spend the next week or two at Rikers Island, and then be transferred from there to one of the two state intake prisons, where state officials will determine his ultimate prison location.
Ja Rule had been busted in 2007, when cops searched his Maybach as he left a concert at the Upper West Side’s Beacon Theatre, seizing a 40-cal unlicensed handgun found inside.
In today’s plea, Ja Rule admitted that he had “dominion and control” over the gun.
“He admits that the gun was in the vehicle owned by his company, and that therefore it was in a vehicle under his control,” said his lawyer, Stacey Richman.
Complicating matters was the microscopic amount of the rapper’s DNA was swabbed off the gun, according to Assistant district attorney Joan Illuzzi-Orbon — making it a difficult possession case to take before a jury.
Had Ja Rule gone to trial and been convicted of the top charge against him, outright criminal possession, he faced a mandatory minimum of 3 and 1/2 years prison.
Richman had argued that the DNA sample was too small to reliably test — and that the several cells swabbed off the gun could have been transferred there indirectly, without Ja Rule having actually handled the gun.
But Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Richard Carruthers had denied defense motions to challenge the science behind the gathering and processing of the DNA.
“I don’t believe that mere legislation solves any problems without education,” Richman said after the sentencing.
“This gun law has done nothing to fight the blight of gun violence in our city. Gun violence will always be a problem, because we have failed to educate our youth in all communities of the dangers of guns. The guns are still there.”
As for Ja Rule, he stood up and he took responsibility for everything, Richman said.
“He is a phenomenal father, who is what we want in our communities. The idea of sending him to prison for two years is illogical. It doesn’t serve a purpose.”
“Carrying an illegal gun in New York City puts the safety of all New Yorkers at risk,” Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance said after the sentencing.
“Whether you are a Grammy-nominated musician or a teenager carrying a gun for a friend, justice is blind. This sentence should put all illegal gun owners in New York on notice.”