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Rapper T.I. coming to Arkansas — for prison term

Other News Materials 16 May 2009 06:32 (UTC +04:00)

Rapper T.I. will be coming to Arkansas - to serve a federal prison sentence, AP reported.

T.I., whose real name is Clifford J. Harris Jr., must report to Forrest City's low-security federal prison by noon on May 26, according to court filings. There, Harris will join 1,500 other inmates as he serves a year-and-one-day prison sentence after pleading guilty in March to federal weapons charges in Atlanta.

The rapper, the self-proclaimed "King of the South," had faced a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for each charge in his three-count indictment.

Harris will be credited for 305 days of home detention he already has served after being charged, so his stay at the Forrest City prison likely will be only two months.

R.D. Weeks, a spokesman for the prison, said Harris likely would be treated like any other prisoner coming into the facility.

"Unless there are custody or security concerns, all incoming inmates are placed in general population," Weeks told The Associated Press.

Weeks said each cell at the prison is double-bunked. Harris also will have the opportunity to use the recreation yard, as well as take part in counseling or participate in the one of the facility's 14 religious groups, Week said.

Harris, 28, was arrested after trying to buy unregistered machine guns and silencers from undercover federal agents in 2007. That came after Harris' best friend was killed following a post-performance party in Cincinnati in 2006. The rapper has said the bullets that killed his friend were meant for him.

Upon his release, Harris will be on probation for three years. He also must pay a $100,000 fine as part of his sentence.

Harris' sixth album, "Paper Trail," has sold about 2 million copies and the rapper earned a Grammy for the song "Swagga Like Us" that he performed with Jay-Z. Harris wrote the lyrics for the album while awaiting trial.

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