Paroled rap mogul arrested

Rap music mogul Marion “Suge” Knight was taken into custody Monday for alleged parole violations that could send him back to prison for a year, authorities said.

State parole official Fernando Rios declined to explain the violations allegedly committed by the 37-year-old founder of Death Row Records.

But law enforcement sources said some of the four violations relate to Knight’s alleged association with reputed gang members who authorities say are connected to a series of retaliatory shootings this year. As a condition of his parole, Knight is not allowed to associate with gang members.

Knight was taken into custody Monday afternoon by Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies after meeting with his parole officer in Van Nuys. Knight will be in custody until a hearing on his case.

Knight’s lawyer, David Z. Chesnoff, said he was surprised by the arrest.

“Mr. Knight has done everything within his power to avoid any kind of trouble and at the same time remain active in the hip-hop recording community,” Chesnoff said. “His association with people that the parole board finds objectionable is in all likelihood, if true, directly connected to the music business and nothing else.”

In the 1990s, Knight’s company, now called Tha Row, propelled hard-core rap from the fringe into the headphones of teenagers nationwide and generated $100 million a year in album sales. But the colorful, Compton-born mogul never let go of his tough-guy roots.

In 1992, he was convicted of assault and federal weapons violations, but was given probation. In 1996, he was incarcerated for five years for violating the terms of his probation after he and several associates, including rap star Tupac Shakur, were recorded on videotape beating a gang rival in the lobby of a Las Vegas hotel. Three hours after that, Shakur was fatally shot on the Las Vegas strip and Knight, who was with him, was wounded.

Since his release from prison last year, Knight has vowed to rebuild his company and stay out of trouble. But in recent months, he has been dogged by an Los Angeles County sheriff’s investigation into a string of shootings allegedly committed by employees of Tha Row, some in retaliation for the killing of employee and Knight friend Alton “Buntry” McDonald.

The Sheriff’s Department has pushed for Knight’s return to prison, providing a detailed report of Knight’s alleged parole violations garnered in part from a November raid on Knight’s homes and businesses.

“We gave his parole officer evidence to substantiate that Mr. Knight has violated his parole on several occasions,” said Sheriff’s Lt. Bob Rifkin.

Sheriff’s investigators stopped Knight’s car April 3 and found him with Timmy “Timmy Ru” McDonald, an alleged member of the Mob Town Pirus. That night, McDonald’s brother, Alton, had been fatally shot as he stood beside his sport utility vehicle at a gas station in Compton.

In retaliation, law enforcement sources said, Eric “Scar” Daniel was shot and killed June 7, and another man was shot and wounded Sept. 12.

Last month, sheriff’s investigators obtained an arrest warrant for Timmy McDonald as part of an investigation into a string of shootings involving rival members of two Bloods gang factions. McDonald allegedly tried to shoot a man Oct. 22 in retaliation for the slaying of Knight associate Henry “Hendog” Smith six days earlier.

Several of the suspects in those shootings are on the payroll of Tha Row, and a car used in one of the shootings was tied to Tha Row, sources said.

Three other Knight associates were arrested last month during the raid on suspicion of conspiracy to commit murder. They were later released and no charges were filed.

During that raid, sheriff’s investigators found evidence that Knight lived in a Malibu home without the knowledge of his parole officer. Law enforcement sources also said they had recovered photographs of Knight and gang members at a party making gang signs with their fingers.

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Times staff writers Andrew Blankstein and Jessica Garrison contributed to this report.