LIL KIM'S EX-BOYFRIEND COULD FACE THE LETHAL NEEDLE IF CONVINCTED ON CONSPIRACY TO MURDER CHARGE.

Damion "World" Hardy, the 33-year-old ex-boyfriend of rapper Lil' Kim, faces death by lethal injection if found guilty of ordering the execution of a rival that also took the life of an innocent bystander. The alleged hit man, Eric (E-Bay) Moore, also faces the federal death penalty for the Aug. 10, 2000, slaying of Ivory Davis, who was shot twice as he sat in his car outside New York's Club NV at Hudson and Spring Sts, reports the New York Daily News. Davis, mortally wounded, drove off and fatally struck a pedestrian, Swedish filmmaker, Johan Camitz.

Hardy, the reputed leader of a murderous drug crew called Cash Money Brothers, served time for shooting at narcotics cops in Brooklyn and was a notorious presence at the Lafayette Gardens projects in Bedford Stuyvesant, where his crew controlled the drug trade, law enforcement officials said. In 2003, cops said he confronted rapper 50 Cent in a New Jersey hotel parking lot, sparking a shootout after the rapper dissed Lil' Kim on the radio. A lawyer for Hardy claims he has since undergone a religious conversion, legally changing his name to Isa Ibn Jibril. He is also mentally ill, the lawyer said. Last week, a federal judge ordered Hardy to undergo a psychiatric exam to determine if he is competent to stand trial on federal racketeering and murder charges.

"I am the Christ. I am the Messiah," Hardy ranted in court in 2004 after he was arrested at JFK Airport as he returned from a religious pilgrimage in the Middle East. "Do not be the one to go against the law," he went on. "Adhere to the law's command before I give you warning. A day that is drawing near. A day of grief and regrets. Boiling water will be poured over your heads."

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Hardy and Lil' Kim once lived together in her New Jersey mansion, reports the Daily News. He drove around in a Land Rover that she gave him and the couple was believed to be engaged, a law enforcement source said. Defense lawyer David Ruhnke refused to say if Lil' Kim would be asked to testify at the penalty phase of the trial if Hardy is convicted.