Snoop Dogg Avoids Jail Again After Plea Bargain

Snoop Dogg pleaded guilty on Thursday to felony possession of a dangerous weapon and was sentenced to perform 160 hours of community service, serve three years under probation and make a $10,000 U.S. donation to charity.

The conviction stems from an incident last September at John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana, California where the rapper tried to take a collapsible 53-centimetre police baton in his laptop computer bag on to a plane bound for New York. Snoop (real name Calvin Broadus) insisted at the time that the baton was a prop that he was going to use in a music video and that he had inadvertently left it in his case.

The felony conviction will be reduced to a misdemeanour after one year if Snoop stays out of trouble with the law.

"We are very pleased with the outcome," said lawyer Donald Etra in an Associated Press report. "Snoop's goal is to make music, not make court appearances."

Snoop pleaded no contest to felony gun and drug charges in April and was sentenced to five years of probation and performing 800 hours of community service in connection with his arrest last October at Bob Hope Airport in Burbank, California.