Knight Tried to Bring End to Assault, Victim Says

With Marion “Suge” Knight’s freedom and perhaps the fate of Death Row Records at stake, prosecutors pushed Thursday to revoke Knight’s probation and send him to state prison for nine years because of an assault in a Las Vegas hotel.

But the victim of the assault, a Lakewood man with reputed gang ties, said Thursday in court that Knight did not assault him but instead acted as a peacemaker in the Sept. 7 fight at the MGM Grand Hotel.

Two police officers contradicted that testimony by saying that reputed gangster Orlando Anderson, 22, had said last month that Knight had been involved in the fight.

And a hotel security manager asserted that she saw Knight kick Anderson three times--although three kicks are not visible on a hotel surveillance video.

As the day wore on, Knight, 31, who appeared in court for the first time in weeks without handcuffs, veered between glee and concern.

He did not speak, but when his team of half a dozen attorneys scored points, he frequently turned and smiled broadly at the audience. When the police officers were on the stand, however, he cradled his shaved head in his left arm and stared straight ahead.

Many of Knight’s supporters came to court Thursday wearing yellow ribbons as symbols of what his mother, Maxine Knight, called their love and unity. Before entering court Thursday, mindful of the stakes, supporters shouted to one another in the courtroom hallway: “Keep the faith!”

Death Row dominates the nation’s pop chart this week with rapper Tupac Shakur’s posthumous album. It also is poised to dominate the lucrative holiday buying rush with a handful of forthcoming releases. But the label’s future depends on Knight, who is intimately involved with its business operations but faces a nine-year prison term.

Under the terms of a 1995 plea bargain, Knight entered no-contest pleas to a 1992 assault on two aspiring rappers in a Hollywood studio. Judge John W. Ouderkirk suspended the nine-year term and imposed five years probation.

Knight has been in jail since Oct. 22, however, for four possible probation violations, the most serious allegation being that he was involved in the Sept. 7 fight.

The hotel videotape captured the fight--or about 10 seconds of it. In court last week, after watching the tape, Judge J. Stephen Czuleger said it appeared that Knight kicked Anderson. The tape, shown for the first time to the public and the press Thursday, clearly shows a gaggle of men surrounding Anderson, who is easily identifiable because he is wearing a white football-style jersey with the number 13 on it.

But Knight is not sharply in focus. And because the tape was shot by a roving surveillance camera and because the action veers across the screen, Knight is not captured on video for the duration of the incident--leaving his role to be described by witnesses.

Anderson testified that seven or eight men “jumped” him, among them Shakur. Later that night, Shakur was fatally wounded by gunfire while riding near the Las Vegas strip in a car driven by Knight. Anderson was questioned by police about the shooting, but authorities have said he is not considered a suspect.

Anderson said of Knight’s involvement in the fight at the hotel, “I seen him pulling people off of me,” adding that the rap executive was the “only one I heard saying, ‘Stop this [stuff]!’ ”

Anderson invoked his 5th Amendment rights and declined to answer questions from Deputy Dist. Atty. Bill Hodgman about whether he was a member of a street gang affiliated with the Crips.

Wearing the blue colors typically associated with the Crips, he also declined to say whether he went by the gang nickname “Babylane.”

And when Hodgman asked whether Anderson or “his associates” had ever “beaten up” others in a street gang affiliated with the rival Bloods at a Lakewood shoe store in the days or weeks before Sept. 7, Anderson once again invoked the 5th Amendment.

Compton Police Officer Ray Richardson, meanwhile, testified that he was present when detectives interviewed Anderson on Oct. 2. Referring to Anderson, Richardson said, “He basically said he had been jumped by some Bloods. Also Suge and Tupac.”

Brent Becker, a Las Vegas police detective, testified that he had interviewed Anderson separately Oct. 2. “He made the comment that Tupac and Knight beat him up pretty good,” Becker said.

Annette Machuca, the MGM’s security manager, said she was there that night and saw Knight kick Anderson three times. Because three kicks are not visible on the video, defense attorneys tried to show that she was not believable on any point--noting, for instance, that although she insisted she was wearing a navy blue suit that night, it looks gray in the video.

Testimony resumes today. It is unclear when Czuleger will issue a ruling.