Rapper Da Brat was sentenced to three years behind bars, seven years of probation and 200 hours of community service Friday morning (August 22) for striking a woman in the face with a rum bottle. The October 2007 incident at an Atlanta-area nightclub
left the victim's face permanently scarred.
According to the Atlanta-Journal Constitution, DeKalb County Superior Court Judge Gail Flake handed down the punishment, while about six members of the rapper's family quietly wept inside the courtroom. Da Brat (born Shawntae Harris) told her relatives "I love y'all" as she was led out of the courtroom by sheriff's deputies. "We love you too," they replied.
Harris had pleaded guilty to felony aggravated assault, a charge stemming from a serious physical altercation that happened last Halloween during a party at Jermaine Dupri's Studio 72 nightclub just outside Atlanta. According to reports, Da Brat got into a heated confrontation with one of the club's waitresses and was accused of striking the woman in the face with a bottle of rum, causing numerous cuts on her face.
The waitress was taken to a hospital for treatment. Police said the Halloween attack wasn't the first time Da Brat and the victim were involved in a physical altercation.
This is also not Da Brat's first brush with the law. In 2000 she faced charges that she beat a woman with a gun during a dispute over VIP seating in a Buckhead, Georgia, nightclub. The victim in that incident received six stitches for a head wound. That case did not make it to trial, however. Instead, in 2001 the rapper agreed to perform 80 hours of community service, serve a year's probation and pay a $1,000 fine after pleading guilty to misdemeanor reckless conduct.
This report is from MTV News.
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