FILE - Rapper Tupac Shakur attends a voter registration event in South Central Los Angeles, Aug. 15, 1996. A Nevada judge is being asked to decide Tuesday, June 25, 2024, if a former Los Angeles-area gang leader will be freed from jail to house arrest ahead of his murder trial in the 1996 killing of hip-hop music legend Tupac Shakur. (AP Photo/Frank Wiese, File)
LAS VEGAS (AP) – An ailing and aging former Los Angeles-area gang leader is due to ask a Nevada judge on Tuesday to change her mind and release him from jail to house arrest ahead of his trial in the 1996 killing of rapper Tupac Shakur.
Duane “Keffe D” Davis’ attorney, Carl Arnold, said in court filings that since a hearing last month during which the judge denied Davis’ release over questions about the legality of money he wanted to post as bail, he has submitted financial records proving the source is legal.
Arnold also argued that since Davis has not been convicted of a crime, it doesn’t matter if Davis and Cash “Wack 100″ Jones, a hip-hop music figure who says he is underwriting Davis’ $750,000 bail, plan to profit from selling Davis’ life story.
Nevada law prohibits convicted killers from profiting from their crime.
Neither Arnold nor his spokesperson, Xochitl Underwood, responded to emails seeking comment.
In court filings, prosecutors accuse Davis, 61, of “scheming … to obfuscate the source” of the $112,500 “gift” that Jones testified he put up as a 15% guarantee to obtain Davis’ bail bond.
Jones, who has managed artists including Johnathan “Blueface” Porter and Jayceon “The Game” Taylor, testified in June that he was willing to put up the money for Davis because Davis was fighting cancer and had “always been a monumental person in our community … especially the urban community.”
Clark County District Court Judge Carli Kierny ruled that she wasn’t satisfied that Davis and Jones weren’t planning to profit. She also said she couldn’t determine if Jones wasn’t funneling money to a bond guarantee company on behalf of another unnamed person.
Arnold argued in new court filings that Davis hasn’t been convicted, so he cannot be prevented from profiting. Furthermore, he wrote that because Davis and Jones have no contract for a “movie, series or any other form of media production,” concerns about the source of bail money are “not legally relevant.”
Prosecutors responded that a judge can set any condition deemed necessary to ensure that a defendant returns to court for trial. If Davis is allowed to post a “gift” for release, he’d have no incentive to comply with court orders or appear for trial, set to begin Nov. 4, they said.
Davis is originally from Compton, California, but now lives in Henderson, near Las Vegas. He has been seeking his release from jail since shortly after his arrest last September. He has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and could be sentenced to life in prison if he’s convicted.
Prosecutors say Davis’ own words, including in his tell-all book in 2019 as well as in various police and media interviews, are strong evidence that he’s responsible for Shakur’s killing. They say they have testimony from other people who corroborate Davis’ accounts.
Authorities allege that the killing stemmed from competition between East Coast members of a Bloods gang and West Coast parts of a Crips gang, including Davis, for dominance in a musical genre known at the time as “gangsta rap.”
Shakur had five No. 1 albums, was nominated for six Grammy Awards and was inducted in 2017 into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. He died at age 25.
