Ja Rule pleads guilty to gun charge

Ja Rule is to serve two years in jail after pleading guilty to illegally possessing a gun. Police found the weapon in his car when he was stopped in 2007 on the same night that Lil Wayne was booked for carrying a gun on his tour bus.

"Minor setback for a major comeback," tweeted Ja, real name Jeffrey Atkins, after leaving the hearing in New York yesterday. The rapper appeared before a Manhattan judge, formally submitting his plea for attempted criminal possession of a weapon, a class D felony in the second degree. He will likely serve 16 months of a two-year prison sentence, followed by 18 months' probation – Ja Rule would have faced up to seven years in jail if he had been found guilty at trial.

The charges stem from a night in July 2007, just after Lil Wayne performed his first-ever headline gig in New York, at the Beacon theatre. The rapper joined Weezy on stage for two songs, but after they left the venue both were pulled over in separate police traffic stops. In Lil Wayne's case, someone casually tossed a Louis Vuitton bag – with a gun inside – from the rapper's tour bus. For Ja Rule, the problem was a luxury sedan with an allegedly suspended registration. After police halted the vehicle they discovered a semiautomatic .40-calibre pistol in the back seat. Ja Rule, his manager and their driver were all booked at the scene.

Whereas Lil Wayne's plea deal, submitted in October 2009, resulted in a one-year jail term Ja Rule has reportedly agreed to a two-year sentence. This will not be formalised until February 2011.

"What did I do to deserve this!" Ja Rule said on Twitter, quoting Rick Ross. However, one of the rapper's peers proved less than supportive. "Wipe ya nose sucka," 50 Cent wrote to him. "[They're] throwing a going away party for this punk [and] they can't even afford alcohol. [They're] looking for sponsors ... Come on [it's] only 721 days stop crying." Somehow we don't think Fiddy's going to visit Ja in the clink.