Tough-gal rapper Remy Ma’s gangsta image melted in tears yesterday after she was convicted of shooting a woman outside a Manhattan nightclub.
“Oh, my God! My son! My son!” she screamed, referring to her 8-year-old, as she was hauled out of court to jail, where she faces the possibility of spending the next 25 years behind bars.
Remy, 26, was found guilty of assault, weapons-possession and coercion charges for blasting Makeda Barnes Joseph, 24, with a .45-caliber handgun outside a club in the Meatpacking District on July 14, 2007.
The courtroom was tense as the guilty verdicts were read.
One of the rapper’s supporters had to be hauled out after he stood up and shouted, “F- – – ya’ll.”
“I don’t like that judge,” the man later said outside the courtroom.
“She should die slow.”
Remy initially took the verdict stoically. But after Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Rena Uviller ruled that she should be remanded to jail until her sentencing next month, one of Joseph’s supporters sarcastically waved at her and said, “Bye, bye” – after which the rapper broke into tears.
Her wailing could be heard from the adjoining holding room after she was taken out of court.
“Remy’s taking this very hard,” her lawyer, Ivan Fisher, said after the verdict.
“She didn’t anticipate this. She didn’t even tell her son, who she left at home this morning.”
Joseph, meanwhile, waited to learn the verdict in a car parked outside.
“I’m so happy justice was served,” she said, before breaking into tears herself.
She and Remy got into the fateful showdown last year after the rapper accused her of stealing $3,000.
Remy got into Joseph’s car and demanded that the woman hand over her purse. When Joseph refused, Remy shot her in the stomach.
Joseph spent three weeks in the hospital recovering.
The office worker had spent a day on the stand testifying against her former pal, reliving the flash of the rapper’s .45 and the car filling with gun smoke.
She testified that Remy did nothing to help her after the shooting.
“She didn’t say anything,” Joseph testified. “She went through my bag and left.”
The rapper – whose real name is Remy Smith – argued that the gun went off accidentally while they were struggling over the bag.
But jurors apparently rejected that assertion.
“It was a very, very difficult decision,” said one unidentified juror as he left court. Remy will face between eight and 25 years when she is sentenced on April 23.
The only good news for her was that she was acquitted on charges of witness tampering for allegedly taking part in an attack on the boyfriend of a witness in the case.
She was a flamboyant presence throughout the two-week trial, never walking into court on heels less than four inches high and favoring miniskirts and clingy tops.