NEW YORK -- The country's top rated hip-hop disc jockey, DJ Star, whose real name is Troi Torain, was arrested Friday on charges of harassment and endangering the welfare of a child in a case stemming from on-air racial and sexual remarks about a rival's wife and 4-year-old daughter.

Torain, 42, was taken into custody and transported to a police precinct in Lower Manhattan.

The New York Police Department's Hate Crime Task Force launched the probe after the chief of detectives reviewed a transcript of DJ Star's on-air comments about DJ Envy and his family, said police spokesman Paul Browne.

Torain was ordered to surrender a 9 mm handgun and target practice permit at police headquarters. When he arrived, he was arrested.

Star apologized on Thursday through his attorney, Benjamin Brafman.

The lawyer called the remarks "unsuitable and inappropriate" and assured the rival's wife she had nothing to fear. But he also claimed his client was the victim of threats by her husband.

Torain worked for Clear Channel Radio's Power 105.1 FM before being fired Wednesday amid protests from elected officials. A city councilman, John Liu, said on Thursday that the disgraced DJ "now must be put behind bars for spewing these threats against a little 4-year-old girl."

In the comments, made between May 3 and Monday, Torain -- co-host of the syndicated "Star and Buc Wild Morning Show" -- offered $500 to any listener who could provide information about the rival DJ's daughter's school and used racial slurs when talking about his wife, who is part Asian.

"I will come for your kids," Torain said, according to transcribed excerpts provided by Liu's office. "I finally got the information on his slant-eyed, whore wife."

Torain called the couple's child a "little half-a-lo-mein eater" and said he wanted to "do an R. Kelly on your seed, on your little baby girl. I would like to tinkle on her," according to the excerpts.

The comments apparently were referring to videotapes in 2002 showing a man bearing a striking resemblance to singer R. Kelly having sex with someone who appeared to be an underage girl and then urinating on her.

DJ Envy's wife, Gia Casey, has said she is parts Chinese, Jamaican and Scottish. Telephone messages left for a spokeswoman for hip-hop radio station Hot 97, where DJ Envy works, were not immediately returned Thursday evening.

Torain and his half-brother , Timothy Joseph, or Buc Wild, hosted Hot 97's morning drive time show beginning in 2000 and joined Clear Channel Radio in March 2004. They began working at Power 105 in January 2005.

Their show aired in markets including Philadelphia, Miami and Richmond, Va.

Clear Channel, a unit of Clear Channel Communications Inc., said it found Torain's statements "wholly unacceptable."