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| FILE - In this Friday, Jan. 30, 2015 file image from video, Death Row Records founder Marion "Suge" Knight, right, walks into the Los Angeles County Sheriffs department in the early morning in connection with a hit-and-run incident that left one man dead and another injured. Knight, had his $2 million bail revoked in Los Angeles after his arrest in running down and killing a man. Los Angeles County sheriff's spokeswoman Nicole Nishida says detectives asked a bail commissioner Monday, Feb. 2, 2015, to keep Knight behind bars because he is a possible flight risk. |
LOS ANGELES
(AP) -- Former hip-hop music mogul Marion "Suge" Knight was charged
Monday with murder and attempted murder after he struck two men with his
pickup truck last week.
Prosecutors allege
that Knight intended to run down a friend and another man after an
argument on a movie set. One of the men was killed.
Attorney
James Blatt says Knight accidentally ran over the men on Thursday as he
tried to escape a vicious attack. He turned himself in to police on
Friday.
Knight's initial bail of $2 million
was revoked Monday after a court commissioner agreed with authorities
that he was a potential flight risk and could intimidate witnesses.
The
ruling came after homicide detectives told the bail commissioner that
the 49-year-old founder of Death Row Records could face a lengthy prison
sentence because of a violent criminal past and had the potential to
intimidate witnesses, Los Angeles County sheriff's spokeswoman Nicole
Nishida said.
Knight is scheduled to appear in
court in Compton on Tuesday to be arraigned on four felony counts,
which include murder in the death of 55-year-old Terry Carter,
"attempted, willful, deliberate, and premeditated murder" involving
victim 51-year-old Cle "Bone" Sloan, plus two charges of hit-and-run.
Knight was out on bail in a separate robbery case when the men were hit.
Knight
was at the center of one of the most notorious rap conflicts of the
1990s, pitting Tupac Shakur against Biggie Smalls in an East Coast-West
Coast rivalry.
Knight was sent to prison for
nearly five years for badly beating a rival with Shakur at a Las Vegas
hotel, just hours before Shakur was fatally shot while riding in
Knight's car just east of the Strip.
In the
current case, Knight struck two men with his pickup truck in a Compton
burger stand parking lot. The collision killed his friend, Carter, a
founder and owner of Heavyweight Records who was viewed as a local
father figure and tried to help mentor young men in the community, said
Doug Young, a friend and hip-hop music promoter. Also injured in the
collision was Sloan, an actor and film consultant.
Authorities
said Knight visited the set for "Straight Outta Compton," a film about
the rise of the rap group N.W.A., and argued with Sloan who was working
at the location on Thursday. Sheriff's deputies providing security asked
Knight to leave.
A short time afterward, the
argument resumed in a parking lot a few miles away where Knight and
Sloan exchanged punches through a window of the pickup truck before the
two men were run down, authorities said.
Blatt
has said Knight was attacked by four people, including Sloan, as he
pulled into the parking lot after Carter requested he show up for a
meeting. Blatt said Knight hit the gas and fled in fear.
Because
a conviction in the case could result in Knight's third serious felony
under California's three strikes sentencing law, Knight could face up to
life in prison if he's convicted.
Thursday's
incident came less than six months after Knight was shot six times at a
West Hollywood nightclub in August - the second shooting he has
survived. No arrests have been made in that case.
At
6-foot-4 and weighing 325 pounds, Knight is an imposing figure who is
credited, in part, with helping create Death Row Records when he
strong-armed another label to release Dr. Dre from his contract, said
Chuck Creekmur, CEO of allhiphop.com.
Knight
and Dre later had a falling out, and Dre left the record company that
eventually declared bankruptcy and was auctioned off.
In
November, Knight pleaded not guilty to a robbery charge filed after a
celebrity photographer accused him of stealing her camera in Beverly
Hills. Because of prior convictions, he could face up to 30 years in
prison in that case.
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