Defsounds

For a second, ignore the fact that this is a Hip-Hop website.... during this period, close your eyes and imagine that you are a judge in the court of law. Now imagine that you had a suspect who was caught purchasing several illegal weapons. Incorporate the fact that he is not allowed to purchase or own any fire arms because of past offenses. But before you jump to any conclusions, also remember that he is a convicted felon who has had serious run ins with the law on numerous occasions. To most people, the decision would be simple. You would give him a heavy sentence. If only life worked this way! Instead of you giving this man the jail time that many would expect him to receive, he cops a plea deal where he could do as little as two years. Does anyone find this a little strange?

The stated scenario above is rapper T.I.'s reality. After being arrested on federal gun charges in October of 2007, Rapper T.I. has struck a plea deal in which he will do 1,500 hours of community service by talking to youth groups around the country, followed by about 12 months in prison. But the amount of prison time he has to do, can be extended or reduced depending on his fulfillment of the terms of the deal and good behavior. While fans everywhere are celebrating for such a slap on the wrist for the self proclaimed "King Of The South", many others are beginning to wonder how a man with such an extensive criminal record could have gotten off with what sums up to be a 'slap on the wrist' for a federal charge. So, the brain trusts at defsounds.com got together and created a theory on how he got such a light sentence. Let's first look at T.I's previous criminal record.

Exhibit A - Before, the gun charges, T.I. already had a laundry list of criminal offenses, as well as parole violations. Here's a look at his record, dating back to 1997.

Nov. 1997 arrested in Georgia for distribution of cocaine, manufacturing and distributing a controlled substance, and giving authorities a false name. He was later sentenced for this crime serving seven months in jail and released on seven years of probation.

Sept. 2003 - arrested in Florida for striking an officer, trespassing and disorderly conduct

Dec. 2003 - warrant issued in Geogia for violating parole

Jan. 2005 - sentenced in Florida to 18 months' probation and 75 hours of community service

May 2005 - released from Georgia jail on $25,000 bond

2005 - arrested for threatening man outside Atlanta strip club; charge dismissed.

Side Bar -

Just to set the record straight, this is not being written to bash T.I. It is merely an attempt to analyze the reasoning behind these judges decisions. But thinking logically, what would be the reasoning for the purchase of the kind of weapons that T.I. was caught trying to buy? Prosecutors allege that T.I., 27, "asked his bodyguard to buy three machine guns and two silencers on his behalf". To make things worse, it was revealed that at the time of the arrest he also had up to a half-pound of marijuana in his car along with three additional handguns. One of which was loaded. With that amount of weaponry, it is easy to make an assumption that the purchases were being made with the intent to use these weapons. Add in his detailed criminal record, along with some of his violent lyrics, and that slight assumption can easily grow to full blown suspicion.

Even law experts are perplexed by the deal that T.I. was given. Atlanta defense lawyer, Page Pate, said, " Cases like T.I.'s usually leave defendants with at least a 5 year sentence. There are a lot of people who are sitting serving time in federal prison right now who would love to talk to schools and churches and other community groups to serve some of their time, but they can't do that because they don't have his celebrity."

Exhibit B-

The common penalty for a weapons charge of this caliber would be a minimum of 5 years, with a 250,000 dollar fine for every weapon purchased. With a credible criminal record, that sentence would usually move up to 10+ years very easily with little argument.

Dont jump the Gun Yet-

Now before I continue it is important to remind you that T.I's sentencing is still not official, which means that after the 1500 hours of community service, that one year sentence can still be boosted up to 5-10 years depending on how the judge feels, and although this may seem like a strange punishment, it is not the first time that a raper has received a sentence. Case in point, Fabolous had something similar to this a couple of years ago, although his crime was not as serious.

Now to put it all together -

So now that we are all caught up with the general information lets take a look at a couple of things that might make you scratch your head if you take a closer look.

On October 4th, 2007, T.I. is arrested in Georgia for buying and possessing automatic weapons.

For a while, there's really nothing going on but updates of T.I. and his status on house arrest then all of a sudden on March 12th Details surrounding the murder of T.I.'s personal assistant and friend, Philant Johnson, emerge.

In an article written on Sohh.com, sources from Atlanta radio station "V103", claim that authorities know who the triggerman is and have also learned the motive behind the crime through another unrelated arrest. Up until this point the shooting had been shelfed as a cold case [ a case with no leads], but out of nowhere the cops get a lead and the case has life again. Then just a couple of day's later T.I. Gets his plea deal.

To those who have not been following, this seems like nothing more than a mere coincidence, but lets take a step back to look at the guns that T.I. bought. According to most of the reports, he was trying to purchase three Machine guns and two silencers, along with his attempt to purchase these weapons, he also had three pistols in his car, one which was loaded. From someone looking in from the outside, it would seem that T.I. must have really had it in for someone to take such a risk and attempt to buy weapons of that caliber. But then the question would be.... Who could bring out this vicious intent out of T.I.? What would motivate a man that has everything to even consider reacting that way when he had everything to lose?

The answer is quite simple.The only person from what we know that might have had that ability would have to be the man that killed TIPS close friend and assistant, Philant Johnson. What else would drive him to purchase weapons meant for destruction other than revenge? When he gets caught, his plans would clearly have been thrown to the wayside seeing that he now had gun charges to beat. So the easiest thing to do would be to throw the one you were after under the bus. With jail time imminent, and revenge still burning inside of him, dropping the dime on his friend's murderer might have been the the key to his deal.

TIP would get some time, but nothing compared to what he might have received, and the cops get to nab a killer. And just to make things a little nicer, they throw in the community service so that TIP can clean up his image so if at the end of the year he gets a slap on the wrist, it can be justified with no suspicion.

After looking over everything and putting the pieces together it becomes clear that the possibility of T.I.P. breaking the ultimate street code very possible. Maybe he did snitch to get a kinder sentence. Maybe just maybe this theory is correct and he gave in the name of the man that killed his friend. The possibility that he gave up the names of some gun traffickers is still very likely as well, but we may never know. So as he begins his rehabilitation process, and starts his conquest to knock out those community service hours and clean up his act, fans will still ponder over how such a deal went through. But regardless of what we may think or feel, he is his own man and must stand by his own decisions. One year from now we may say goodbye to the "King Of The South" for a long time, or the one year sentence might stick, and we will all sit and wonder out loud, "Just how did he pull that off??".