Several pills confirmed to be a "controlled substance" were found on Grammy award-winning rapper T.I. and his new wife after they were stopped on a Hollywood street after making an illegal U-turn, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.
Spokeswoman Nicole Nishida said several pills confiscated after the traffic stop late Wednesday indicated they were a type of ecstasy, a drug used at raves and clubs to enhance sense of self-confidence and energy.
She said the pills were found on T.I. and his new wife, Tameka "Tiny" Cottle, and not in the Maybach, the luxury car they were in.
No court date has been set for T.I., whose birth name is Clifford Harris Jr., and Cottle to appear on the drug charges.
He is, however, supposed to return to Atlanta to meet his federal probation officer and possibly the judge who agreed to his unusual sentence after he pleaded guilty to gun charges.
One of his attorneys, Don Samuel, said he did not know when his client would be back in his hometown or when he would be in court. The couple was reportedly seen in Atlanta at a local steak house Friday night, several children in tow.
Ed Garland, another member of his legal team, said T.I. notified his probation officer soon after he was arrested. T.I.'s probation officer has told him to return to Atlanta.
T.I. pleaded guilty in 2008 to illegally possessing firearms and possession of a gun by a felon charges that were brought after he had gone to a Midtown parking lot to buy machine guns, ammunition and silencers almost five months earlier. His contact was an undercover federal agent. His crimes could have brought him years in prison.
But his plea deal let him spend a year on probation before beginning his prison sentence of a year and a day. In that year he was to perform 1,000 hours of community service telling kids and fans across the country not to emulate his old lifestyle of drugs, guns, gangs and violence. It was during that year of probation that he produced and starred in an MTV series "T.I.'s Road to Redemption," in which he would give troubled teens a dose of reality.
If he did not complete that portion of his punishment, T.I. could have been sentenced to up to six years in a federal prison instead of a year and a day that was part of the deal.
T.I. spent seven months in a federal prison in Arkansas and then the remaining three months in a halfway house, a transition almost all federal prisoners complete before release. When he was freed last March, T.I. resumed his probation, which included 500 hours more of community service.
During T.I.'s March 2007 sentencing hearing, the rapper told U.S. District Judge Charles Pannell he was sorry for what had happened and vowed to become a changed man, and he had an endorsement from Andrew Young -- the former U.N. ambassador, Atlanta mayor and civil rights leader.
Young told Pannell he wholeheartedly endorsed the unusual punishment. Young, who officiated the recent wedding between T.I. and Cottle in July , said he and the rapper had forged a close relationship. Young said T.I.'s anti-drug and anti-violence message had reached legions of fans.
Pannell said in the sentencing hearing he thought the "experiment" had turned out well. But he also told T.I. if he had legal trouble during his time out on community service, "I would have simply sent you to prison."
The question now will be whether Pannell will do that if T.I. is found to have violated his probation.
The terms of T.I.'s probation say he cannot possess or use any narcotic or controlled substance or frequent places where drugs are "illegally sold, used, distributed or administered." He also cannot associate with anyone engaged in criminal activity, the terms of his sentence dictate.
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