Rap mogul’s lawyers contend detective lied

Contending that a Las Vegas police detective lied under oath, lawyers for Marion “Suge” Knight have filed a motion to set aside a probation violation finding against the rap mogul.

The motion, filed late Friday in Los Angeles Superior Court, is based on an article published in The Times last week and on a Sept. 25 police affidavit recently obtained by Knight’s lawyers.

The affidavit reveals new details about the stalled police investigation into the Sept. 7 shooting in Las Vegas that killed rap star Tupac Shakur and wounded Knight. The affidavit suggests that police began focusing on reputed Los Angeles gang member Orlando Anderson as a suspect within days of the slaying.

Knight’s probation was revoked on Nov. 26 for his alleged participation, with Shakur, in an assault on the 22-year-old Anderson at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas a few hours before the shooting.

Knight is in Los Angeles County Jail awaiting a Feb. 28 probation violation hearing at which he could be sent to prison for up to nine years. The 31-year-old executive founded the successful rap label Death Row Records, which produced the No. 1 album in the nation this week, the soundtrack to the movie “Gridlock’d,” featuring songs by Shakur, among others.

Knight’s lawyers contend that the judge’s finding of a probation violation by Knight relied on the testimony of Las Vegas Police Det. Brent Becker at Knight’s probation hearing in November. Becker, who interviewed Anderson on Oct. 2, the day that Compton police arrested him during a gang sweep, testified that Anderson told him that Knight had participated in the MGM hotel assault.

But Anderson, testifying in the same court proceeding, denied telling Becker that.

Becker also testified that, on the day of the raid, he did not consider Anderson to be a suspect in Shakur’s killing, and wanted to speak to him chiefly about the altercation at the MGM.

Yet both Anderson’s attorney and Los Angeles police sources have told The Times that Becker told Anderson in that Oct. 2 interview that he was a suspect in Shakur’s shooting. And according to the affidavit prepared by Compton police to obtain search warrants for the gang sweep, Becker knew by Sept. 16 that police in Compton and Las Vegas had received numerous tips that Anderson--who goes by such gang monikers as “Lando” and “Lane”--was responsible for Shakur’s shooting.

Becker could not be reached for comment. Anderson declined to comment, but Edi M.O. Faal, his attorney, denied that Anderson had anything to do with Shakur’s death.

The affidavit, signed by Compton Police Det. Tim Brennan, contends that Shakur’s murder was the result of gang rivalry between Death Row-affiliated members of the Mob Piru Bloods and the Southside Crips, of which Anderson and several of his relatives are allegedly members.

On the evening of Sept. 7, Shakur and Knight had gone to the Mike Tyson-Bruce Seldon heavyweight fight at the MGM Grand Hotel, and on their way out, Shakur and several Death Row employees affiliated with the Mob Piru Bloods attacked Anderson, the affidavit said.

They assaulted Anderson, the affidavit contends, because he allegedly had stolen a gold chain from one of the Death Row employees during a gang scuffle last summer at the Lakewood mall.

About three hours after the fight in the MGM lobby, as Shakur and Knight were stopped at a red light just off the Las Vegas strip, a white late-model Cadillac with California plates pulled up in the lane next to Knight’s 750 BMW.

The affidavit contends that a passenger--identified by informants as Anderson--got out of the Cadillac, yelled at Shakur, pulled a gun and began firing into the BMW. The shooter then jumped back into the Cadillac, which sped off.

That account differs in a key respect from what Las Vegas police have been saying. Las Vegas police have described the slaying as a drive-by, with the assailant sticking a handgun out the window of a moving Cadillac, and spraying the BMW with about a dozen bullets in three seconds before disappearing into the dark.

According to the affidavit, informants told police that Anderson was seen days after the shooting with a Glock .40-caliber handgun, the same kind of weapon used in the homicide. Informants also told police that Anderson’s cousin, Jerry “Monk” Bonds, was seen driving a late-model white Cadillac into an auto shop in Compton two days after the shooting, according to the affidavit.

One week after the shooting, Las Vegas detectives examined a box of .40-caliber rounds confiscated by Compton police from a residence where Bonds was living, the affidavit said. Police also confiscated weapons from a Compton residence of Anderson’s uncle, Dwayne Keith “Keefee D” Davis.

During the Oct. 2 raid, Anderson was taken into custody on an outstanding warrant stemming from an April murder in Compton unrelated to Shakur’s death. He was released Oct. 4 after Los Angeles prosecutors declined to file charges against him for the Compton murder.

Las Vegas homicide detectives said they have been stymied in their efforts to prosecute Shakur’s case because of a lack of cooperation from Knight and more than a dozen others in Knight’s entourage. Detectives say that unless a witness comes forward, they doubt they will ever be able to make an arrest.