NEW YORK - Rap star Lil Wayne has gotten a temporary reprieve from jail — for dental surgery.
The Grammy Award-winning rapper’s sentencing in a New York City gun case was postponed Tuesday, because he needs to finish a string of recent surgeries before he goes to jail.
Lil Wayne, one of music’s biggest sellers and rap’s hottest stars, is poised to spend as much as a year in jail under a plea deal, though good behavior could shave that to as little as eight months.
Sentencing now is scheduled for March 2. Manhattan state Supreme Court Justice Charles Solomon said it wouldn’t be put off any further.
The diminutive rapper, his hair in dreadlocks, said nothing at a brief court session Tuesday afternoon. He left in a black SUV, flanked by fellow rapper Birdman and others.
Defense lawyer Stacey Richman said Lil Wayne was headed home to Miami for dental work Friday. She declined to specify his malady.
“It is a medical situation that, like (it would for) any of us, has to be addressed,” she said outside court. She said the rapper had planned to take care of it before Tuesday, but his dentist had been out of the country doing charitable work.
Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Joan Illuzzi-Orbon didn’t fight the rapper’s request to push back his sentencing, saying she had spoken to the dentist.
Lil Wayne, 27, pleaded guilty in October to a charge of attempted criminal possession of a weapon, admitting he illegally had a loaded .40-caliber semiautomatic gun on his tour bus in July 2007. Police found the weapon when they stopped the bus after a Manhattan concert.
Last week, Lil Wayne reinforced his place in rap’s pantheon with a commanding performance at the Grammy Awards ceremony. His latest album, “Rebirth,” was released Feb. 2.
Meanwhile, he is preparing himself for jail, his lawyer said.
“He’s a strong man,” she said.
“This is Lil Wayne going to jail. Nobody can tell me what that’s like,” the rapper told Rolling Stone magazine for its latest issue. “I just say I’m looking forward to it.”
His plea deal calls for him to serve his sentence not in state prison but in the city jail system, where rapper Foxy Brown spent about eight months in 2007 and 2008 for a probation violation involving a fight she had with manicurists in a nail salon.
Rapper Remy Ma spent several months in a city jail in 2008 while awaiting sentencing for shooting a woman outside a nightclub. She’s now serving an eight-year sentence in state prison.
City Department of Correction spokesman Stephen Morello wouldn’t discuss any arrangements being made to house Lil Wayne among the roughly 13,500 inmates in the massive Rikers Island complex and other jails. Most inmates are awaiting trial.
Some inmates, including Foxy Brown, are separated from the general population because of their celebrity or other reasons, but “there’s no special-inmates wing,” Morello said.
Lil Wayne’s attorney didn’t return telephone calls seeking comment Monday.
Lil Wayne, 27, pleaded guilty in October to attempted criminal possession of a weapon, admitting he illegally had a loaded .40-caliber semiautomatic gun on his tour bus in July 2007. Police found the weapon when they stopped the bus after a Manhattan concert.
A rapper since he was a teenager, Lil Wayne, born Dwayne Carter, became known for his voluminous output and collaborations with other artists.
His career has hit a peak in the last two years. His “Tha Carter III” led 2008 album sales with 2.8 million copies sold and featured such hits as the No. 1 smash “Lollipop.” His Grammys include 2008’s best rap solo performance award, for “A Milli.”
