Lil Wayne pleads guilty to illegal-gun charge

NEW YORK (AP) — Lil Wayne, who owned last year’s best- selling album and is No. 1 on the pop charts, pleaded guilty to attempted weapon possession Thursday and expects to receive a one-year jail sentence.

The performer, arguably rap’s most popular artist and one of pop’s biggest acts, previously had pleaded innocent to illegal gun possession charges that carried at least 31‚Ñ2 years in jail upon conviction. He remains free on bail while awaiting his February sentencing.

The somber-looking rapper did not speak as he left the courthouse with members of his entourage, who piled into four SUVs.

Police said a gun was found on his tour bus in Manhattan in 2007.

The rapper, born Dwayne Carter, won last year’s best rap solo performance Grammy for “A Milli.” His albums include “Tha Carter,” “Tha Carter II” and “Tha Carter III.”

His trial had been due to start Jan. 20. The judge had been holding a hearing on a debated DNA profiling technique used to tie the rapper to the gun.

Lil Wayne, 27, also is scheduled for trial in Arizona on felony drug possession and weapons charges. He has pleaded innocent in that case, which arose from a January 2008 arrest at a U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint.

In New York, he politely answered the judge’s standard questions with “yes, sir” and “no, sir” as he entered his plea to second-degree attempted weapon possession, a felony.

He acknowledged he had a .40 caliber semiautomatic loaded gun on the bus.

When the judge warned that he would not be able to withdraw the plea as some people try to do, the rapper said, “I’m not one of those people.”

Prosecutors said small amounts of DNA found on the loaded weapon connected it to the platinum- selling artist.

Defense lawyer Stacey Richman said the gun wasn’t Lil Wayne’s, and the testing technique was too problematic to prove otherwise.

Police pulled over Lil Wayne’s tour bus in Columbus Circle on July 22, 2007. They said they had seen and smelled marijuana smoke wafting out the door before the bus left a concert venue minutes earlier.