April 17, 2008 19:15

Akon reportedly not the bad boy he's been claiming

Did the singer lie about his criminal past?

R&B singer Akon’s past has been called into question after a website investigated the rapper’s criminal record.

The singer had apparently many times claimed that he was once the ringleader of a notorious car theft ring and that he had spent over four years in jail.

According to reports, he went into great detail to describe his past, saying his gang specialised in Porsche, Lamborghini and Mercedes cars and that while in prison he fought almost every day for two years to become a “champion”. It was in prison he said, that he wrote the song ‘Locked Up’.

Now The Smoking Gun has revealed that Akon’s stories were greatly exaggerated and in some cases, completely false.

Akon was convicted of just one felony for gun possession in 1998, and got three years probation. In relation to his massive car –theft ring tales, it transpires that he was arrested for a single stolen car and spent a number of months in Dekalb County Jail before the charges were dropped.

“So there was no conviction. There was no prison term between 1999 and 2002. And he was never "facing 75 years," the report says.

His manager did not respond to the story, while his publicist failed to respond at press time to the questioned posed by the site.

Akon’s recent strife with the law includes a harassment charge after he tossed a teenager from the stage during a New York concert. He was also the subject of criticism after simulating a sex act with a 15-year-old girl during a show in Trinidad.

--By our New York staff.
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