(ThyBlackMan.com) Back in 2006 during an interview with T.I., he told me he had changed. He told me he was sad it took him so long to realize he had been living on the wrong side of the law. He told me it was his biggest regret that he had let down all the kids who look up to him. He was hoping he could move on. He had finally, so we thought, gotten past so many run-ins with the law, including his felony conviction in 1998 for possession of crack cocaine with intent to distribute.
He said all of this in between high-fives and shout outs, to the throngs of young fans who had flocked to CBS Radio’s Atlanta promotion party for T.I.’s “King” CD. Harris also had scored a minor role in the Denzel Washington motion picture “American Gangster” where he played (how life imitates fiction) Washington’s nephew, wanting to grow and be a gangster, like Washington’s character.
As a journalist, anchoring the news for CBS Radio at that time, I was suspect of his remorse, but was told to give him a chance. We aired bits of the interview and I kept my thoughts to myself. Then fast-forward to October 2007, the night of the BET Hip Hop Awards. Just hours before he was to 
take the stage, Harris was busted in a sting operation for trying to buy three machine-guns and two silencers in a midtown Atlanta Walgreens’ parking lot.
His fans said he was set up. Supporters decried entrapment. But those arguments did not fly when the feds also found a cache of high-powered illegal weapons and ammunition in his home and vehicle. I never said “I told you so,” but I did tell colleagues that T.I. should not get any special treatment because he was a celebrity.
But he did.
The plea deal concocted by his lawyers and then U.S. Attorney David Nahmias’s office and accepted by U.S. District Judge Charles A. Pannell Jr.? Deferred sentencing for one year to allow Harris to perform “unique and extensive community service,” after which he would serve a prison term. At sentencing a year later, Pannell sentenced him to a year and a day in federal prison, three years probation and a $100,000 fine–and give up his machine guns of course.
What he had been facing was as many as ten years and a $250,000 fine. Legal experts say, with Harris’ prior record that is the sentence the average defendant would have received.
Nahmias even admitted to the special treatment saying T.I.’s community service would “focus on using his high public visibility and his talents and life experience to tell at-risk young people about the mistakes he has made and to educate them about the dangers of violence, guns, gangs, and drugs.”
During the Grammy-winning rapper’s year of “unique” community service, he did make good on it. He traveled the country with civil rights icon, and former ambassador to the U.N., Andrew Young talking to kids, even appearing in Young’s Emmy-winning documentary “Walking With Guns” which highlighted the visits with gunshot-wounded young kids. I remember briefly speaking to him at the Atlanta premiere of the documentary. He was more subdued, and said things were “okay” and that he was just trying to stay focused on doing the right thing. I wanted to believe him. I felt just maybe I was wrong about this guy.
So he served his time, was released in March, did his half-way house detention, began redeeming himself, got married earlier this summer, and he’s in a new major motion picture. Life is grand. Freedom is sweet. Then came September one. Busted! Again!
After making an illegal u-turn in a Maybach in Hollywood, cops found illegal drugs on both Harris and his new wife Tameka “Tiny” Cottle.
So now what is Judge Pannell to do? The prosecutors?
The judge has ordered T.I. back to his court for a probation-revocation hearing. The new U.S. Attorney Sally Quillian Yates, known for no-nonsense prosecutions of public figures, even sending former Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell to the big house, has a decision to make. Friday she gave a hint that the U.S. Attorney’s office, which many felt gave Harris special treatment, may now need to save face this go around.
“We are very disappointed in Mr. Harris’ recent conduct,” Yates said in a released statement. “We will make our sentencing recommendation at the revocation hearing.”
As for the folks who unabashedly backed T.I. again and again? Those who said it was just “the man” trying to bring a “brotha” down? They must feel almost as angry as the Detroit citizens who so ardently backed Kwame Kilpatrick, the former “hip-hop” mayor of Detroit who is now on lockdown in a federal prison, awaiting trial on public corruption, after being sent to state prison for violating his probation in a local sexting and corruption scandal.
America is a great nation. It is one of the few places in the world where even the hardest of criminals can actually get a second chance at rebuilding their lives. In some cases a third or fourth chance depending on the crime. T.I. is living proof of that.
Young told the audience at the premiere of the documentary that everyone, T.I. included, deserved a chance to redeem themselves from youthful mistakes. He called them our “Jesus years,” noting Christ lived to age 32. I can appreciate that sentiment, especially from a man like Young. But Clifford Harris Jr. turns 30 on Friday, Sept. 25, and I think he’s just about used up his Jesus years.
To put it another way, if this was baseball, he’s had three strikes–“you’re out!” If this was basketball, he’s fouled out of the game.
Prosecutors should recommend and Pannell should revoke Harris’ probation. Right now that seems the only way to educate all those at-risk young people prosecutors said they are concerned about. Doing so would deliver a powerful message that you cannot continue to violate the law and expect to keep getting off easy, just because you’re famous and can hire hotshot millionaire lawyers.
Over the weekend, on his website, T.I. had a 25 percent-off sale on a T-shirt emblazoned with “I got haterz every where I go.” In this case the only one who has “hated” Mr. Harris is T.I. himself–by his continuous irresponsible, illegal actions. He now should pay the price that anyone who is not a celebrity would. Maybe then he will finally learn his lesson, and the millions of young kids who look up to him will learn a valuable lesson too.
Written By Rick Blalock