T.I. appeared in an Atlanta courtroom on Friday where he was sentenced to a year and a day in jail after pleading guilty to weapons charges.
The hip-hop superstar will go to federal prison sometime after May 19 for trying to purchase machine guns, ammunition, and silencers in October 2007.
While federal sentencing guidelines required that T.I. serve around five years for his crime, the rapper’s legal counsel arranged an “experimental” plea bargain that allowed him to stay under house arrest, pay a $100,000 fine, and serve 1,000 hours of community service. He will serve 500 additional hours after his release.
“This has been the most insightful moment in my life,” he told Judge Charles Pannell Jr. during a 45-minute hearing. “I’ve taken the great lesson from it and I will use it in my life. With that, I bid you adieu.”
Tip has performed more than 1,000 hours of community service over the last year, urging youth around the country not to emulate his old lifestyle of drugs, guns, gangs, and violence.
“Although I am not thrilled about my next year and a day, I am pleased that I am beginning the process of putting this all behind me,” he told reporters at a press conference following the sentencing. “Thank you and I apologize to my family, to the young men, young women that I mentor. I hope that I can keep at least one, if not a million or more, from going down a similar path. I just want to say thank you.”
