The G-Unit rapper, whose real name is David Darnell Brown, pleaded no contest to assault with a chance to produce bodily injury and was sentenced to three years of felony probation and 80 hours of community service, but no prison term.

The deal, which Buck’s attorney, Scott Leemon, leaked last week, comes just weeks before the trial was supposed to begin.

“What we’ll tell you now is what we didn’t tell anyone back then,” a cheerful Leemon said outside the courthouse. “If you remember that first day [at Buck’s arraignment in January], I told you pictures may be deceiving. Guess what? Pictures were deceiving. We knew that day in Buck’s hand was a fork. He did not have a knife, he did not cause the injury and what we were able to prove by DNA evidence, by video analysis, is actually he did not do the stabbing.”

Leemon’s co-council, Lenny Levine, said a knife found on the scene at the Vibe Awards with victim Jimmy James Johnson’s blood on it also had DNA from sweat that did not match Buck’s. Video analysis conducted by the rapper’s defense team also showed a fork in the rapper’s hand.

“The allegation was that he used a knife and caused injury