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According to published reports, rapper T.I. was moved to the federal Penitentiary in Atlanta on Thursday, one day after being released from an Arkansas prison where he served 11 months for violating his probation.
The rapper’s lawyer Steve Sadow told The Associated Press that the Federal Bureau of Prisons “moved T.I. to a different facility” because of an issue involving the rapper’s mode of transportation from Arkansas to Atlanta in a gleaming motor coach.
But back in December 2009, a similar customized tour bus was hired to transport T.I. from the same Arkansas prison where he served seven months on federal weapons charges to a halfway house in Atlanta. So the issue isn’t so much the luxury tour bus, but what occurred on board the tour bus that prison officials objected to.
On August 31, 2011 — the day T.I. was released from that same Arkansas facility into that same halfway house in Atlanta via the same mode of transportation as the last time — a custom tour bus, an industry veteran reached out to Sandrarose.com and asked, “Does it make sense that VH1 put out a press release about a reality show before T.I. was even back in Atlanta?”
No, it didn’t make any sense. Apparently, it didn’t make sense to the feds either.
According to a well-connected source within the legal community in Atlanta, the feds “had no idea” that T.I. was the subject of a reality show.
Don’t the feds read TMZ.com?
“Cameras were rolling from the minute T.I. was released from an Arkansas prison Wednesday, capturing his journey from AR to the Dismas Charities halfway house in Atlanta.”
Also at issue, according to our source, was the fact that “arrangements” had been made between the cable network and a worker at the Dismas Charities halfway house to allow filming of T.I. inside the facility.
But a higher-up at Dismas Charities told TMZ there is “absolutely no way” the facility will allow VH1 to bring cameras INSIDE the halfway house… saying, “no, it is just not going to happen.”
There is no word on whether T.I. will remain at the federal prison in Atlanta or be transported back to Arkansas to finish his sentence.
Update I, 9:04 a.m. ET: According to the bureau of prisons website, T.I. is incarcerated at the U.S. federal prison in Atlanta and his new release date is September 29. So it looks like he will do all of his halfway house time locked up.
Update II, 9:09 a.m. ET: TMZ.com spoke with T.I.’s uncle, who reiterated that … T.I. was not drinking on the bus to Atlanta and showed up to the halfway house sober and on time. The uncle says T.I. “stopped drinking a long time ago.”
T.I. stopped drinking about 10 months ago, to be exact…
