POP/ROCK - Sept. 21, 1987

Soul singer Wilson Pickett has been fined $1,000 and sentenced to two years’ probation in Hackensack, N.J., after his July conviction for possessing a shotgun loaded with three shells while sitting in his car outside a bar near his Englewood home in 1984. The gun was legally registered, but it is illegal in New Jersey to knowingly transport a loaded shotgun. Pickett, 46, testified during his trial that he picked up the weapon without checking to see if it was loaded, then drove back to a bar where he’d fought with another patron earlier in the evening. Pickett said he took the shotgun with him only to protect himself.