Ja Rule begins two-year jail sentence

Ja Rule has turned himself in at a Manhattan court to begin his two-year jail sentence for gun possession.

The rapper, born Jeffrey Atkins, was ordered to spend 24 months behind bars after pleading guilty to criminal possession of the weapon in December 2010.

Ja Rule is expected to spend two weeks at Rikers Island correctional facility in New York before being transferred to another prison upstate for the remainder of his sentence. His lawyer Stacey Richman has said that the star's time may be reduced to 18 to 20 months, pending good behaviour.

Appearing on Fox5's Good Day New York on Monday, Ja Rule owned up to the crime, saying: "Laws are laws. There's nothing I could really do but own up to the situation. You know, I try not to regret anything I do in life, because you go through life and you do things, and you man up to them. You own them."

He previously described his pending prison sentence as "a minor setback" which would precede a "major comeback".

Ja Rule also pleaded guilty to tax evasion in March 2011, admitting that he did not file taxes in his state of residence for five years.