Celebrity Buzz: Ja Rule To Begin Prison Term Today

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Ja Rule To Begin Prison Term Today

Rapper will turn himself for two-year sentence after pleading guilty to 2007 gun charge.
By Gil Kaufman

Ja Rule
Photo: Getty

Ja Rule is slated to turn himself in to begin a two-year prison sentence on gun charges on Wednesday morning (June 8). The rapper (born Jeffrey Atkins) pleaded guilty in December to attempted criminal possession of a weapon in connection with a July 2007 arrest in which the Manhattan District Attorney's office claimed police found a loaded semi-automatic .40-caliber Taurus handgun, with the serial number scratched off, hidden in the backseat of the MC's Maybach.

Ja Rule's arrest took place on the same night that Lil Wayne was arrested on a gun charge, which sent the "Lollipop" rapper to jail for eight months last year. The two rappers had performed together that night in Wayne's first major show in New York.

Rule is expected to turn himself in on Wednesday morning, when he will be assigned to an Upstate New York correctional facility to serve his time. Last month, he sat down with MTV News and expressed regret over his pending jail sentence and feelings that he let his wife and children down.

"I'm disappointed," the multiplatinum rapper told Sway during "Rapfix Live." "I'm mad at myself."

Rule, 35, spoke specifically about disappointing his 15-year-old daughter, Brittany, but expressed concern about his two sons as well. "My daughter, she's 15 right now," Ja explained. "These are her last couple of years. She's about to graduate from high school, and she's going to college. She needs her father. My boys really need me right now too, as well as my wife. They need Daddy, and Daddy f---ed up."

Ja also pleaded guilty in March to failing to pay more than $3 million in taxes in New Jersey and faces up to three years in prison in that case.

He hoped his arrest and prison stint would convince young fans to leave guns alone. While Ja Rule's first new album in six years, Pain Is Love 2, was reportedly due for release this week, that effort now appears to be on hold and until later this summer.

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