LAS VEGAS – A former Los Angeles-area gang leader accused of killing hip-hop music icon Tupac Shakur in 1996 in Las Vegas plans to ask a judge on Tuesday to release him to house arrest ahead of a June trial.
Court-appointed attorneys for Duane “Keffe D” Davis said their 60-year-old client is in good health, poses no danger to the community and will not flee to avoid trial.
They want the judge to set his bail at no more than $100,000.
Davis has pleaded not guilty to the murder charge and has remained jailed without bail since his Sept. 29 arrest outside his home in suburban Henderson, where Las Vegas police served a search warrant in mid-July.
He is the only person ever charged with a crime in the shooting that also injured rap mogul Marion “Suge” Knight.
Prosecutors allege in court filings submitted last week that jailhouse phone recordings and a list of names given to Davis’ family members show that there are witnesses who are at risk of harm if Davis is released.
Davis has pleaded not guilty to the murder charge and has remained jailed without bail since his Sept. 29 arrest. AP
They also drew attention to Davis’ own words since 2008 — in police interviews, in a 2019 tell-all memoir and in the media — that provided strong evidence that he masterminded the September 1996 drive-by shooting.
Knight, now 58, is serving a 28-year sentence in a California prison for an unrelated shooting that killed a Compton businessman in 2015.
Meanwhile Davis is being held at the Clark County Detention Center in Las Vegas, where inmate phone calls are routinely recorded.
If convicted, he could spend the rest of his life in Nevada state prison.
In a recording of the October call, prosecutors said Davis’ son said the defendant gave him the “green light” to kill Shakur.
Prosecutors Marc DiGiacomo and Binu Palal said federal authorities “stepped in and provided resources to at least (one witness) so he could change his residence.”
There is no reference in the court filing to Davis ordering anyone to harm someone, or to anyone connected to the case being physically harmed.
Prosecutors allege that Davis’ son said the former gangster gave permission to shoot Shakur. AP
One of Davis’ defense attorneys, Robert Arroyo, told The Associated Press he had seen no evidence that any witnesses had been named or threatened.
Davis is from Compton, California. He insisted that he was granted immunity from prosecution in 2008 by FBI agents and Los Angeles police investigating both the Las Vegas murders of Shakur and rival rapper Christopher Wallace, known as The Notorious BIG or Biggie Smalls, in March 1997 in Los Angeles .
Davis’ attorney argued that his description of Shakur’s murder “was done for entertainment and to make money.”
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
