*Mobb Deep rapper Prodigy's 3 ½ year prison sentence for gun possession was supposed to begin Wednesday, but was again delayed due to complications from his sickle cell anemia.
The artist, born Albert Johnson, was due to turn himself in on Wednesday, but his potentially fatal blood disorder sent him to the hospital with severe lung pain. His lawyer, Irving Cohen, said Prod may also need another hip replacement.
Prodigy had his first hip-replacement surgery during one of three anemia-related hospital stays last year, Cohen said.
"Everybody wants to get this done," the lawyer said of the sentencing. "But this is a crisis situation."
Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Edward McLaughlin asked Cohen to return Wednesday with an update from Montefiore Hospital in The Bronx, where Prodigy had been taken. "It could be he will have to have the operation in the state prison system," the judge said.
The rapper pleaded guilty in October to having a loaded, unregistered .22-caliber weapon in the center console of his bulletproof Chevy Suburban when he was stopped for an illegal U-turn in Chelsea in 2006.