Atlanta rapper T.I. will remain in custody until a bond hearing Friday, when the judge will hold a hearings to determine whether Harris is eligible for a bond and whether there was probable cause for his arrest. Federal prosecutors are moving to keep Clifford Harris aka T.I detained until his trial, which could be several months away. If convicted, Harris, 27, faces certain prison time - about five or more years behind bars, according to the federal sentencing guidelines.

One of T.I’s lawyers, Steve Sadow, said he requested Harris’s bond hearing be postponed until Friday to give the defence team more time to prepare for it. But it will be difficult for Harris’s defence team to win a bond for a defendant who has a prior crack cocaine-dealing felony conviction and who allegedly had an arsenal of weapons at his College Park home.

Harris, wearing a black shirt and pants, answered “Yes, sir,” and “Yes, your honor,” when asked a number of questions by Baverman, such as whether he understood the charges against him and knew he had the right to remain silent. Family members sat jammed together behind the rap star in the packed courtroom.

Federal agents say they have Harris on an undercover tape finalizing the deal for the three machine guns. In an affidavit accompanying Harris’s criminal complaint, Jason Stricklin, a Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms and Tobacco special agent, said one of Harris’s bodyguards cooperated with authorities in the arrest. The bodyguard, whose name has not been disclosed, told agents he illegally purchased nine firearms for Harris since he began working for him in July. In these “straw” purchases, Harris fronted his bodyguard thousands of dollars for the weapons, the ATF agent’s affidavit said.

On four different occasions, the affidavit said, he gave his bodyguard cash to buy firarms.The bodyguard said that in September he delivered a 9-mm pistol to Harris, who invited the bodyguard into his bedroom, the affidavit said. Inside, there was a walk-in closet with a safe tall enough for a person to enter with a fingerprint-reading scanner as a lock, the affidavit said. The safe contained multiple short rifles, including an assault rifle inside a black bag, according to the affidavit.

On Saturday, wearing a hidden wire and cooperating with federal agents, the bodyguard met Harris at a pre-arranged meeting place in Midtown and handed over the three machine guns and two silencers, the affidavit said. When Harris was told about one of the silencers, he said, “no flash, no bang,” and later asked for the “change leftover” from the $12,000 he had given the bodyguard for the weapons, the affidavit said.