Ja Rule and Lil Wayne were arraigned on felony gun charges Monday following their arrests after a hip-hop concert at which they had performed.

Manhattan Criminal Court Judge Abraham Clott set high bails and bonds for the rappers and two other men, but the defendants were expected to be freed immediately, their bonds secured by Ja Rule's $3.5 million house in New Jersey, bail bondsman Ira Judelson said.

Ja Rule, of Saddle Brook, N.J., and two men with him were stopped for speeding around 10:30 p.m. Sunday, and a police computer check of their 2004 Maybach luxury car revealed it had no insurance and a suspended registration, prosecutors said.

When police stopped the car, whose price runs in the $250,000 to $400,000 range, they "detected a strong odor of marijuana," Assistant District Attorney Joan Illuzzi-Orbon told the court. A loaded .40-caliber semiautomatic gun was recovered from the rear driver's side door, she said.

Lil Wayne, who's from New Orleans but lives in Miami, was arrested around 11:30 p.m. while dressing in a tour bus near the Beacon Theater, where the rappers had performed, Illuzzi-Orbon said. Approaching police officers smelled marijuana, and as they got closer Lil Wayne, 24, tossed aside a bag that contained a loaded .40 -caliber handgun, she said.

Police believed that another person, so far uncharged, had stuffed 7 pounds of marijuana down the bus' toilet as officers approached, prosecutors said.

All the defendants were charged with second-degree illegal gun possession.

Attorney Stacey Richman, who represented all four defendants, noted that despite prosecutors' claim that police detected the odor of marijuana in both arrests, nobody was charged with possession of it.

The judge set bond at $150,000 for Ja Rule, whose real name is Jeffrey Atkins, and at $70,000 for Lil Wayne, whose real name is Dwayne Carter. He set bond at $20,000 for Mohamed Gamal, Ja Rule's driver and limo service owner, and at $150,000 for Dennis Cherry, Ja Rule's road manager.

Source: Associated Press