Prosecutors also accused Knight of conspiring with his fiancee and some of his prior attorneys to manipulate the case. County Sheriff’s Department had produced text messages detailing the threats, and Gray himself called the LAPD after the 2014 incident, records show. Gray also refused to cooperate with prosecutors in a hearing related to the criminal threats case against Knight, according to a transcript reviewed by The Times. “I will not be used to send Suge Knight to prison.” During a preliminary hearing in 2015, Sloan broke down in tears on the stand and refused to cooperate with prosecutors, despite suffering serious injuries when Knight smashed into him with a truck. Knight’s reputation for intimidation also loomed large over the proceedings. As recently as Wednesday he pleaded with Coen to fire his court-appointed defense attorney. Knight has cycled through more than a dozen attorneys on the murder case, seemingly firing lawyers indiscriminately. Dre was present at Tam’s on the day of Carter’s death. In the three years since his arrest, Knight has tried to bolster his self-defense argument by claiming a hit man hired by Dr. Knight’s case had evolved into a bizarre and winding legal saga long before Thursday’s plea agreement. His legal team had long claimed there were men with guns at the scene attempting to injure or kill Knight, but prosecutors have contended there is no evidence to support that. Knight - who fled the scene but eventually turned himself in - originally pleaded not guilty, arguing that he acted in self-defense. Authorities say Knight, who was depicted in the movie, was upset about not receiving financial compensation for the use of his likeness.įootage from the burger joint’s security camera shows Knight’s truck barreling into Carter and Sloan. The hit-and-run crash followed an argument on the set of a commercial for “Straight Outta Compton,” which chronicled the rise of the seminal hip-hop group N.W.A. Dre asked him to build a custom car for a giveaway as part of the promotion for Dre’s solo debut album, “The Chronic,” according to his wife. He first met Knight in the early 1990s, after the mogul and rapper Dr. Carter also founded Heavyweight Records alongside rapper and actor Ice Cube. An entrepreneur with a penchant for building custom lowriders, he also worked as a car salesman and music producer, and he owned several automobile businesses and limousine services, his wife said. Carter’s wife, Lillian, disputed that in a recent interview with the Los Angeles Times, saying that her husband only knew Knight through business dealings and that the two had not been close in several years.Ī Compton native, Carter grew up on Piru Street - the block from which the notorious sect of the Bloods street gang takes its name - but he was well-known for helping young men avoid gang life, according to his family. Knight and his legal team have described the victim as a longtime friend and previously said the mogul was “heartbroken” to learn Carter had been killed. Cle “Bone” Sloan, who was involved in a physical altercation with Knight moments before the incident, was severely injured but survived. He originally faced life without the possibility of parole if convicted.Ĭarter, a 55-year-old Compton native who knew Knight through the music industry, was killed. Knight has been behind bars since January 2015, when he was arrested and charged with intentionally ramming his Ford F-150 pickup into two men in the driveway of Tam’s Burgers at Central and East Rosecrans avenues in Compton. 15, 1996, voter registration event in South Central Los Angeles. The law is now retroactive, Grace said.Rapper Tupac Shakur, left, and Marion “Suge” Knight attend an Aug. Bobby Grace, who filed the petition to have Barnes resentenced, said he also considered new state law that would have prevented Barnes from being tried in adult court if the same case was presented now. Barnes suffers from sickle cell disease and was considered high risk if he contracted the virus, Levenson said.īarnes will be freed under a section of the penal code that allows prosecutors or corrections officials to seek the resentencing of a defendant due to a significant change in circumstances, including medical conditions. But as the coronavirus crisis continued to wreak havoc in jails and prisons, the case took on new urgency. Lawyers with the Project for the Innocent took on Barnes’ case approximately six years ago, after the victim in the case acknowledged Barnes may not have been the shooter, Levenson said. He was never a member of a gang, in part because his mother really watched carefully over him,” she said.
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