Grammy Award winning rapper Lil’ Kim has been sentenced to a year in prison after lying to a federal jury about a shooting outside a radio station in 2001.

Lil’ Kim, born Kimberly Jones, was convicted in March for perjury and conspiracy and will spend 366 days in jail rather than the spend three years and seven months that prosecutors wanted. She was also fined $50,000.

Judge Gerald Lynch said that Lil’ Kim deserved more time than Martha Stewart, who spent five months in jail and another five under house arrest, because while Stewart lied about a white-collar crime rather than a violent one. Lil’ Kim also took the stand and repeatedly lied unlike Stewart.

“You sat right next to me there and stared in the eyes of the jurors, and you tried to charm them and you tried to fake them out,” he said.

But Lynch acknowledged Lil’ Kim for returning to court on Wednesday and admitting that she had lied to protect members of her entourage.

“I testified falsely to the grand jury and during the trial. At the time I thought it was the right thing to do, but now I know it was wrong,” she said with her voice breaking.

She also wanted to take full blame for her assistant who is awaiting sentencing for perjury and conspiracy also.

“Consider my life’s work and not just the days in the grand jury and on the witness stand in the courtroom. I’m a good, God-fearing person,” she told the judge.

It all started when Lil’ Kim’s entourage ran into a rival rap group, Capone-N-Noreaga. The entourage confronted them about the song, “Bang Band” which contained an insult to Lil’ Kim from rival female rapper Foxy Brown.

One man was hurt in the shootout.

Lil’ Kim told the grand jury that she didn’t see her friends, manager Damion Butler and Suif Jackson, known as “Gutta,” at the shootout.

But security photos from the radio station showed Butler opening the door for Lil’ Kim. Witnesses also said that they saw her at the station with Butler and Jackson.

She’ll start her sentence on Sept. 19.






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