NEW YORK (AP) — Rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine tried unsuccessfully on Tuesday to convince a federal judge not to send him to prison, calling him “brother” and insisting he never intended to violate the terms of his probation for a felony conviction.

Manhattan District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer ordered that he be held for at least two weeks, citing alleged violations such as failing drug tests and refusing to obtain required permission to travel — acts that he said reflected a lack of of respect for the law.

The judge also noted that the performer left the Dominican Republic this year, in violation of a court order to remain there, after he was arrested in January on domestic violence charges and detained in October 2023 after being accused of assaulted a local music producer. His lawyers say he is being treated unfairly there in a corrupt judicial system.

In 2019, Engelmayer sentenced him to two years in prison in a racketeering case. The musician, whose real name is Daniel Hernandez, pleaded guilty in 2019 to charges accusing him of joining and directing violence in the gang known as the Nine Trey Gangsta Bloods.

Tekashi 6ix9ine was scheduled to appear in court Tuesday morning. When he didn’t, Engelmayer signed a warrant for his arrest. When the rapper appeared later that morning, he was arrested and charged with repeatedly violating his probation in what a prosecutor described as a “pattern of noncompliance.”

Engelmayer, who released Tekashi 6ix9ine on Monday in early April 2020, granting a compassionate release because of the dangers the coronavirus posed to him, was stern as the rapper stood before him.

He seemed to soften somewhat after Tekashi 6ix9ine insisted on addressing him directly.

The rapper apologized for coming to court late.

“I’m not a bad person,” he said, noting that he completed four and a half years of a five-year term of supervised release but ran into trouble after his supervision was changed in July from court officers in New York to judicial officers in the Southern District of Florida, where he now lives.

He contested the prosecutor’s claims that he did not seek permission to go to Las Vegas in early September for a show in front of 20,000 people and said he skipped two drug test appointments because he thought they were unnecessary after a previous positive test for marijuana use was proven wrong.

“I feel like I didn’t do anything wrong,” he said, though he was quick to add that he knew he did some things wrong “technically.”

Otherwise, he said, he would have been “cleaned.”

He also said that his life has been difficult and that “the last four years have been bad, bro.”

He added: “Freedom is everything to me.”

Tekashi 6ix9ine later addressed the more casual judge, saying his failure to submit to several drug tests was “just a misunderstanding, your honor.” He insisted he had never used drugs and that a drug test that found methamphetamines came from prescription drugs that contained traces of the substance.

At another point, he told Engelmayer, “I’m not a piece of,” before pausing, apparently to choose the right words, before saying, “I’m not a bad person.”

The judge acknowledged there could be justification for some of his behavior but said he felt the rapper was “cutting corners”.

After the hearing, the rapper’s attorney, Lance Lazzaro, said in an email that his client had been charged with three “technical violations” of his supervised release and that he was “confident that each count will be dismissed.”

The musician’s next hearing is scheduled for November 12.

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