Tupac Shakur, the wounded rap star, was discharged yesterday from Metropolitan Hospital Center in Manhattan, a day after a Manhattan jury convicted him of sex abuse.
As the police searched for the gunmen who shot the entertainer at least four times in what they say appeared to be a robbery early Wednesday, his lawyer, Michael Warren, said Mr. Shakur was "someplace in Manhattan."
"He is under protection, believe me," Mr. Warren added.
He said he expected Mr. Shakur, 23, to appear in State Supreme Court on Monday for a hearing to set a date for sentencing. It will possibly also decide conditions of his release pending sentencing and an appeal.
Mr. Warren said Mr. Shakur would appeal his conviction on felony sex-abuse charges for groping a fan who went to his room at the Parker Meridien Hotel last year.
Mr. Shakur was acquitted of more serious charges: forcing the woman to have oral sex with him and his friends, and weapons charges. He faces 2 1/3 to 7 years in prison.
On Thursday, hours before the jury returned its verdict, he made a dramatic courtroom appearance -- sitting in a wheelchair, his head and hand swathed in bandages. He had checked himself out of Bellevue Hospital Center after surgery on Wednesday. His lawyer attributed his leaving Bellevue, at First Avenue and 27th Street, to "security problems" at the hospital posed by the police, but he would not elaborate.
"Physically, his condition has improved," he said yesterday.
Dr. Stuart Marcus, the chief resident of the trauma service at Bellevue, said Mr. Shakur had 10 entrance and exit wounds caused by either four or five bullets. "It is consistent with five shots, " he observed.
The doctor said two bullets grazed Mr. Shakur's head, one went in and out the back of his left hand and another entered the back of his right thigh and came out the front. "The fifth wound is on the scrotum," he said. "It is possible that the same bullet struck the thigh and the scrotum."
During about an hour and a half of surgery, the doctor said, a steel coil was implanted in a branch of a major blood vessel to stem bleeding in Mr. Shakur's right thigh.
Sylvia N. Reyes, a spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Hospital Center, 70 blocks north of Bellevue, issued a statement yesterday saying that Mr. Shakur had been admitted Thursday afternoon "for evaluation and follow-up of injuries sustained when he was shot. "
"His studies are completed, and his condition continues to improve," she said. "He has been discharged today, and we have arranged for subsequent follow-up care."
Although Mr. Shakur has been quoted as describing his shooting as a setup, Sgt. John Clifford, a police department spokesman, said yesterday: "We're still looking at it as a robbery. We have no reason to feel that it wasn't a robbery."
The police said $40,000 worth of jewelry was taken when three men, two of them armed, attacked Mr. Shakur and two associates as he arrived for a recording session in a midtown Manhattan building.
