Rapper T.I. arrested on firearms charges before hip-hop awards
Last Updated: Sunday, October 14, 2007 | 10:16 AM ET
CBC News
Grammy-winning rapper T.I. was arrested Saturday just hours before he was slated to perform at the BET Hip-Hop Awards in Atlanta.
'[He] is confident his name will be cleared.'—Dwight Thomas, lawyer for T.I.
Members of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) arrested the 27-year-old rapper at a shopping centre parking lot.
The rapper was nominated for nine awards and was reported to have captured two awards in absentia. BET hasn't made the winners' list public because the ceremony is scheduled to be broadcast on Wednesday.
"I salute my guy T.I., who also won, wherever he is," said Chicago musician Common, who shared the CD of the Year prize with T.I.
T.I., whose real name is Clifford Harris, is charged with possession of unregistered machine-guns and silencers in addition to possession of firearms by a convicted felon.
The self-proclaimed King of the South was convicted on felony drug charges in Cobb County, Ga., in 1998 and sentenced to seven years of probation.
"This is very unfortunate that T.I. was arrested, not only in terms of the timing of his appearance on the hip-hop awards show, but also the fact that he was arrested at all. [He] is confident that his name will be cleared," Harris's lawyer, Dwight Thomas, said in a statement released late Saturday.
Federal documents allege Harris was planning to pick up machine-guns and silencers that he had his bodyguard purchase for him.
Bodyguard became informer
Authorities were tipped off when a firearms dealer informed ATF that a person had inquired about buying a machine-gun without registering the weapon as required.
The unnamed bodyguard admitted he had bought nine firearms for Harris and the performer had given him cash to buy guns four separate times.
After being arrested at the parking lot in Atlanta, agents discovered three firearms in the car Harris was driving. Authorities also searched the rapper's home in East Point, southwest of Atlanta, where they found six guns.
Harris grew up in Atlanta and was selling crack by the time he hit his teens. He spent much of his extra time recording demos and eventually scored a record deal, launching an album in 2003, Trap Muzik.
His sixth album, T.I. V. T.I.P., was released in July and debuted at No. 1.
Harris won two Grammys in 2006 including best rap/sung collaboration For My Love with Justin Timberlake. He has also become an actor and has a role in American Gangster, starring Denzel Washington, due out in November.
With files from the Associated PressShare Tools
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