Busta has amassed four busts in 10 months, including an arrest early Thursday morning on suspicion of driving under the influence after NYPD officers, citing his too tinted windows, pulled him over and detected the smell of alcohol in the car. Rhymes, whose real name is Trevor Smith, registered a 0.147 blood-alcohol level, nearly twice the state's legal limit of 0.08.
Defense attorney Scott Leemon filed a motion rejecting the prosecution's attempt to combine Rhymes' two misdemeanor assault charges into one, noting that his client has a "valid defense" in both cases and wants them tried separately. The lawyer has previously called Rhymes' myriad run-ins with the law "payback" for not cooperating with the police's investigation into the 2006 shooting death of his former bodyguard,        Israel Ramirez.
If Rhymes had agreed to plead guilty to the assaults, which stem from arrests in both January and August of 2006, in addition to the year behind bars he would have had to participate in an anti-drunken driving program and pay a $1,500 fine.
But while his legal fate still hangs in the balance, Rhymes was free to drive away from the courthouse today, with Leemon getting the judge to overrule the prosecution's attempt to have the hip-hop star's license suspended, yet again. Leemon said that a second Breathalyzer test performed after Rhymes' Thursday DUI arrest showed him to be below the legal limit, according to MTV News.
A hearing on the defense's motion to keep the assault charges separate is scheduled for July 10.
Rhymes did consider accepting a plea deal in February that would have kept him out of jail in exchange for probation and community service if he pleaded guilty to third-degree assault, but two days after the deal was placed on the table, the rapper was pulled over for running a red light and arrested for driving with a suspended license, and a judge rescinded the offer.