Rapper Ja Rule passed a big milestone in his legal struggles on
Thursday morning when he was released from a prison in upstate New York,
where he’s been incarcerated since June 2011 on a gun charge.
But there’s a twist: Along with the two-year sentence on the state gun
charge, the 36 year old has been working though a 28-month federal
sentence for tax evasion. The sentences were running concurrently, which
leaves him with time still to serve in the federal case — so he’s out,
but he’s not yet free.
Ja Rule, real name Jeffrey Atkins, went from the Mid-State Correctional
Facility to the Oneida County Jail into central New York, where he was
awaiting word from the Federal Bureau of Prisons about where he’ll serve
time in the tax case. His lawyer said the rapper may have less than six
months left to serve, and could be eligible to pass that time in a
halfway house. He was let go at the earliest possible release date.
“There’s a lot of anticipation knowing that he’s so close to the end of
it…and frustration,” attorney Stacey Richman told MTV News. “He knew he
wasn’t getting out today, but his spirits have been extraordinary
throughout. A lot of people want to work with him.”
In December 2010, Ja Rule pleaded guilty to attempted criminal
possession of a weapon after police in 2007 found an unlicensed, loaded,
semiautomatic weapon in his Maybach during a traffic stop. In March
2011, Rule pleaded guilty to three counts of failing to file a tax
return, admitting that he’d failed to pay income tax on more than $3
million (Dh11 million) earned from 2004 through 2006, with prosecutors
dropping charges related to earnings in 2007 and 2008. At the time, he
agreed to pay $1.1 million in back taxes.
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