Foxy Brown wants out.
Expressing concern that her hearing will continue to deteriorate due to a chronic ear condition, the incarcerated hip-hop star petitioned Tuesday for early release from New York's Rikers Island, where she's four months into a year-long sentence for probation violation on an assault charge.
"I am terrified of not hearing a fire alarm go off, or being locked in a cell, and someone not being kind enough to let me out, since not everyone understands the severity of my condition," Brown wrote in a four-page letter attached to her attorney's motion.
Two surgeries to ease her cochlear comfort failed, attorney Laura Dilimetin wrote in the petition filed on Brown's behalf in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan. "If her hearing is damaged any further, it will affect the way she hears, and it will affect the way she sings. It will have dire consequences on her ability to maintain her profession and livelihood."
Brown, whose real name is Inga Marchand, wants to be out by Jan. 30 in order to "have her cochlear implant reprogrammed and repaired" at the House Clinic in Los Angeles, "or else face imminent harm to her hearing," Dilimetin wrote.
"Her condition is worsening in jail since she cannot obtain at Rikers the proper treatment," the motion states. "Ms. Marchand does not want to risk such a sensitive and complicated process to centers that have failed her in the past."
The only doctor who has a history of successfully treating Brown's condition and cochlear implant complications is in L.A., Dilimetin insists.
A court date to hear the motion wasn't immediately set.
"Yes, I've made some bad choices and stupid mistakes. But please understand that sitting in a prison with murderers and criminals is not rehabilitating or what I need to deal with my inner issues," Brown wrote, characterizing herself as a "good person with an incredible heart" underneath the bad rap, no pun intended.
"Up until now, you've only hear about Foxy Brown the artist," she continued. "I'd like to show you Inga Marchand, the beautiful person that my mom raised me to be. Jail has shaken me to the core, and my time away has impacted me greatly.
"'Foxy Brown gets into an altercation with a neighbor' would be great front-page headlines, whereas 'Foxy Brown brings Christmas toys to 30 disabled children' would hardly be mentioned."
While she hasn't had a chance to put that idea into effect while behind bars, the "Chyna Doll" rapper has been doing her best to "maintain her profession" since she landed on the inside in September. She launched a Website so fans could keep track of her comings and goings, however geographically confined, and proceeded with plans to put out a new album in November.
Her work was interrupted, however, when she was sentenced to 76 days in solitary confinement after tussling with another inmate outside the ladies' dining hall, refusing to submit a urine sample for a mandatory drug test and verbally trashing some of the guards.
Brown ended up spending 40 days in isolation before reentering Rikers' general population Nov. 27.
Brooklyn's Don Diva, the rapper's first studio album since 2001, now has a Feb. 5 release date.
Brown was sentenced Sept. 7 to a year in jail for a series of probation violations incurred after she pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault in October 2006, stemming from her run-in in 2004 with two manicurists in a Manhattan salon.