SAN FRANCISCO >> Bay Area rapper A.B. Milli has been released from custody after spending more than a year behind bars in a federal gun case, records show.

The San Francisco-based rapper, whose real name is Albert Collins Jr., pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm and was sentenced in November 2021 to 14 months in federal prison. Given that Collins had been in jail since then, he had only weeks left to serve. He was released Dec. 11, according to Bureau of Prison records.

Collins was arrested Nov. 2, 2021, by San Francisco police, who pulled over a BMW he was driving on Sunnydale Avenue and Hahn Street and searched him due to a parole clause that allowed for warrantless searches. Prosecutors say the officers recognized Collins as a known gang member and decided to pull him over on that basis.

Collins allegedly ran from police briefly, then, when he was arrested, said, “Y’all got me,” and “the gun’s in the garbage can.” An officer found a pistol under a parked Audi and another inside the leg of Collins’ jeans, prosecutors wrote in court records.

In a sentencing memo, Collins’ lawyer, Scott Sugarman, wrote Collins had a “horrifying background” but redacted many details of it. He wrote Collins has had to overcome “mountains of pain, fear, depression and stress.”

“What other child was in the room while their mother stabbed another person to death, covering the child in blood, and then a few years later was called to see his father’s bullet-ridden body lying dead in his neighborhood during, of all times, the Christmas/New Year’s holidays?” Sugarman wrote. “His father had been shot down in a drive-by shooting as he walked Mr. Collins’ sister to the candy store.”

In 2005, Collins’ mother was charged with murder for stabbing to death a boyfriend, David Sample, 25, who had allegedly stabbed her in the neck earlier in the evening, according to media reports at the time. Two years later, Albert Collins Jr.’s father, Albert Collins Sr., was shot and killed while using his own body to shield his daughter from gunfire. In the aftermath, he was hailed as a hero.

Prosecutors asked for a 15-month sentence for Albert Collins Jr., which would have kept him in custody into the beginning of 2023. They argued this would “reinforce the seriousness of the offense, and thus help deter Mr. Collins from future conduct.” In a motion last year to keep Collins in jail while the case was pending, prosecutors cited rap lyrics recorded nearly a decade ago in which Collins alluded to shooting guns.

A dis record made by Collins and others became the focal point of a 2018 murder trial in Contra Costa County. Prosecutors contended that Collins and fellow Bay Area rapper Yatta accused Mario “NastyO” Pitteard of snitching on someone in a burglary case. Pitteard retaliated by recruiting three other San Francisco gang members and attempting to kill one of Yatta and Collins’ friends, authorities alleged.

The result was a 2016 freeway shooting on Highway 4 in Pittsburg, where 25-year-old Vallejo resident Shanique Marie — a mother of four — was killed as she drove in the car next to the intended victim. Pitteard and co-defendant Marcus Gaines accepted plea deals after a wild trial that ended with the death of a juror. Two other suspects were released after prosecutors dropped charges against them.