After being furloughed from an Arkansas prison to a halfway house in Atlanta, last week, rapper T.I. was kicked out and was sent back to a Georgia prison after prison officials allegedly objected to his use of a tour bus to transfer between locales. Though it was originally thought that the tour bus was the cause for the violation, it’s now been reported that T.I. was sent back to prison because he had unauthorized passengers on his tour bus.
On Sept. 8, TMZ published an incident report stating that when T.I. was released from Forrest City Correctional Facility, his wife, Tameka “Tiny” Cottle, his manager and two VH1 producers joined him on his tour bus. However, according to the report, T.I. was only allowed to travel to the Atlanta halfway house with his wife and it’s suggested that he was conducting business with the producers, which was apparently a direct violation of his furlough.
According to MTV News, T.I. filed a furlough application with the Federal Bureau of Prisons, in which he declared that he would be traveling in a “privately owned vehicle” with his wife. But according to the rapper’s attorney, Steve Sadow, the bureau never informed T.I. or himself of the stipulations regarding the rapper’s transfer.
“Bureau of Prison officials did not specifically state at any time that T.I. was limited to being in the vehicle with his wife and no one else,” Steve Sadow said. “There is nothing that was specifically instructed or directed on this.
“It doesn’t say ‘list all of the individuals that you are going to be with’ or ‘you may not be with anyone else.’ ”
Sadow also stressed that T.I. did nothing wrong and that he didn’t conduct any business on the tour bus, contending that the Paper Trail rapper had already secured his reality show deal as well as a separate book deal prior to the transfer.
“He had no reason to think there would be a problem traveling with these particular people, because his manager had been approved for visitation and had seen him several times at the facility in Arkansas and the producer had been approved for visitation and had seen him several times,” said Sadow.
T.I. is currently awaiting scheduling for a disciplinary hearing.
If T.I. is cleared of any wrongdoing at his discipline hearing, he would be released back to the halfway house to serve out the remainder of his sentence. But whatever the outcome, T.I. will have satisfied his 11-month probation-violation sentence and be released from custody Sept. 29. –nicholas robinson
