LAS VEGAS — A judge on Tuesday again denied a request to release an ailing former Los Angeles gang leader accused of involvement in the 1996 murder of hip-hop star Tupac Shakur, alleging a cover-up surrounding the source of his bail money.
The decision by Clark County District Court Judge Carli Kierny came after an attorney for Duane “Keffe D” Davis said he would provide additional financial documents to prove Davis and the record company executive agreed to post their $750,000 bail. are not planning to make a profit from the sale of Davis’ life story and that the money was obtained legally.
“I feel like there’s an attempt to cover it up,” Kierny said, adding that she was left with more questions than answers after receiving two identical letters, apparently from the entertainment company that record executive Cash “Wack 100” Jones had wired the money to.
Kierny said one of the letters was signed by a name with no connection to the company.
Davis attempted to be released shortly after his death. Arrest September 2023making him the only person ever to be charged with a murder that has generated much interest and speculation for nearly three decades.
Prosecutors allege the shooting that killed Shakur in Las Vegas was the result of competition between members of an East Coast Bloods gang and groups from a West Coast Crips sect, including Davis, over dominance in a genre known at the time as “gangsta rap.”
Kierny previously rejected Davis’ bid to have music executive Cash “Wack 100” Jones pay $112,500 to raise Davis’ $750,000 bail, saying she was not convinced that Davis and Jones were not seeking to make a profit. She also said she could not determine whether Jones was acting as a “middleman” on behalf of another, unnamed individual.
Nevada has a law, sometimes called a “slayer statute,” that prohibits convicted murderers from profiting from their crimes.
Jones, who has managed artists including Johnathan “Blueface” Porter and Jayceon “The Game” Taylor, testified in June that he wanted to donate money to Davis because Davis had cancer and “had always been a monumental person in our community…especially in the urban community.”
Davis has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder. Also Tuesday, Kierny postponed the start of Davis’ trial from Nov. 4 to March 17.
He and prosecutors say he the only person still alive who nearly 28 years ago was in a car that fired shots into another car, killing Shakur and wounding rap music mogul Marion “Suge” Knight.
