Rap superstar Lil Wayne is prison-bound after taking a surprise — and surprisingly docile — gun possession guilty plea this morning in return for a promise of one year behind bars.
The Grammy-winning superstar has performed across the globe, pulling in tens of millions per tour. But he’ll be spending most of 2010 in an upstate cage — thanks to the .40-caliber Springfield Armory semi-automatic cops confiscated from his pot-smoke-infused tour bus after a concert two years ago at the Beacon Theater.
For all his violence-laden lyrics, his guilty plea — taken shortly after 10 a.m. by Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Charles Solomon — was utterly well-mannered, peppered with polite “Yes, sir’s” and “No, sir’s.”
Wearing jeans, a puffy, hooded down jacket and his trademark dreads — the hip hop sensation admitted today only to attempted possession.
Had he risked going to trial and been convicted of the original top charge of outright possession, he’d have been hit with the mandatory minimum of 3 1/2 years prison under New York’s stringent gun laws.
Lead prosecutor Joan Illuzzi-Orbon said her office agreed to let Lil Wayne plead down to attempted possession after considering the “mitigating circumstances” of the case.
The prosecutor didn’t elaborate. But celebrity defense lawyer Stacey Richman has repeatedly complained that the gun actually belonged to another, uncharged associate of the rapper who was on the bus and was willing to accept responsibilty for it.
Lil Wayne appeared to still be sensitive on the topic of taking the rap for a gun he insists wasn’t his own.
Asked by the judge if he was voluntarily pleading to having “exercised dominion or control” over the unlicensed weapon, the rapper paused.
“Yes, I did,” he said. “Dominion.”
The judge pressed the rapper. “Did you have dominion or control over this weapon — and that’s really what possession is.”
“Yes, sir,” came the rapper’s grudging, but polite, reply.
Lil Wayne’s lawyer has also complained that prosecuotrs used faulty forensics in linking Wayne to the gun.
A tiny handful of cells — anywhere from two to 16, visible only via microscope, all presumably sloughed off skin cells — were swabbed off the grip and trigger and matched to Lil Wayne’s own genetic profile.
In fact, before taking his surprise plea, Lil Wayne had been slated to spend today and tomorrow before the same judge, listening to both sides argue over whether such a small sample of genetic material can be accurately amplified for testing — and whether loose skin cells on a particular surface prove anything anyway.
Prosecutors, meanwhile, were poised to insist that the so-called “Low template DNA” testing of minute samples has been used around the world beginning in 1999– including being accepted as evidence in New York City 43 times.
The sides were still reluctant yesterday to set aside their differences on the issue == even though Lil Wayne’s plea made the matter moot.
“It’s the defense contention that this is still a dangerous technique,” Richman announced. “It’s dangerous to all the citizenry of New York.”
Countered the prosecutor: “The people stand by this procedure.”
The tattooed, New Orleans-based performer is due back in court for a pre-sentencing proceeding on Dec. 15, at which time a precise February sentencing date will be set by the judge.
The rapper, born Dwayne Carter, won last year’s best rap solo performance Grammy for “A Milli.” His albums include “Tha Carter,” “Tha Carter II” and “Tha Carter III.”