Rap superstar Lil Wayne is prison bound after taking a surprising — and surprisingly docile — plea of guilty to gun possession yesterday 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 semiautomatic cops confiscated from his tour bus after a concert two years ago at the Beacon Theatre.
For all of Lil Wayne’s violence-laden lyrics, the guilty plea, accepted shortly after 10 a.m. by Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Charles Solomon, was utterly well mannered, peppered with polite “Yes, sirs,” and “No, sirs.”
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 being convicted of the original top charge of outright possession, he’d have been hit with the mandatory minimum of 3½ years in prison under New York’s stringent gun laws.
That was the sentence former New York Giant Plaxico Burress faced before he pleaded guilty to gun possession in Manhattan court and received 20 months in prison.
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 pot-smoke-infused bus and was willing to accept responsibility 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 whether 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 prosecutors used faulty forensics in linking his client to the gun.
A tiny handful of cells — anywhere from two to 16, visible only via microscope, all presumably sloughed off skin — were swabbed off the grip and trigger and matched to Lil Wayne’s 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 the two sides argue over whether such a small sample of genetic material can be accurately amplified for testing.
The tattooed, New Orleans-based performer is due back in court for a presentencing hearing on Dec. 15, at which time the judge will set a February sentencing date.