Snoop Dogg Avoids Prison, But Gets Stiff Probation

Snoop Dogg avoided a potential year-long prison sentence after pleading no contest to felony gun and drug charges in a Los Angeles courtroom on Wednesday.

The rapper (real name Calvin Broadus Jr.) is by no means off the hook, however. He agreed to five years' probation and 800 hours of community service for his plea to charges of gun possession by a felon and sale or transportation of marijuana, which were related to his arrest last October at Bob Hope Airport in Burbank, California.

Snoop recently formed a youth football league, and the judge ruled that up to 400 hours of his community service could be dedicated to it. The other conditions of his probation are not having gang members in his entourage, notifying the probation department before leaving California, providing authorities with a DNA sample and having a medical permit if he uses marijuana.

Defence lawyer Donald Etra said outside the courtroom that his client smokes marijuana because he has migraine headaches and that he has a medical permit to do so under California law. He added that all of Snoop's security staff and drivers are licensed by the state and that none of them, nor members of his entourage, are gang members.

The hip-hop star will be sentenced to three years in prison if he violates his probation. But the two charges that he entered the no contest plea to won't count as strikes in California's three-strikes law because they didn't involve violence.

Snoop still faces felony charges arising from an incident last September where a collapsible baton, which authorities alleged was a dangerous weapon, was found in his computer bag at John Wayne Airport in Orange County, California.

The artist's rap sheet, as opposed to his rap records, includes a 1990 conviction for cocaine possession and a 1993 gun possession charge. Snoop was acquitted of murder in 1996 after an alleged gang member was killed by gunshots fired from a vehicle that he was driving in.