Former New York Senator Doing Time With Shyne

Former New York State Sen. Guy Velella, convicted of bribery charges, is reportedly sharing the same prison unit at Rikers Island as former Bad Boy rapper Shyne, who is incarcerated for his role in a club shooting. Upon returning to jail Monday (Dec. 27) to finish a one-year sentence for conspiring to funnel public contracts […]

Former New York State

Sen. Guy Velella, convicted of bribery charges, is reportedly sharing the same

prison unit at Rikers Island as former Bad Boy rapper Shyne, who is incarcerated

for his role in a club shooting.

Upon returning

to jail Monday (Dec. 27) to finish a one-year sentence for conspiring to funnel

public contracts to bribe-payers last spring, Velella discovered that Shyne,

who is provisionally stationed on Riker’s Island by court order, resided in

the same North Infirmary Command unit.

Velella’s co-defendants,

Manuel Gonzalez and Hector Del Toro, are the only other inmates in the unit.

Velella was sentenced

to a year in prison last spring but was released three months later through

the Local Conditional Release Commission.

Members of the

board that freed him resigned, and a new board, organized by New York City Mayor

Michael Bloomberg, ordered Velella back to jail.

Shyne is currently

serving 10 years for allegedly firing a 9-mm gun into a crowd outside a nightclub

in the infamous 1997 incident involving Bad Boy Entertainment head Sean "P.

Diddy" Combs and actress/singer Jennifer Lopez. Combs was acquitted of

gun charges.

Shyne will be up

for parole in 2009 and his incarceration didn’t stop him from moving ahead with

his rap career.

The Brooklyn-bred

MC signed with Def Jam Records in April in a deal that was reportedly worth

$3 million in advance for his first album, Godfather: Buried Alive,

released in August.

The rapper is also

teaming with actor/former rapper Mark Wahlberg to produce an untitled documentary

about their lives and their differences. The film is slated to be released next

summer.