(NewsNation) — The man charged in rapper Tupac Shakur’s 1996 killing claimed Sean “Diddy” Combs allegedly offered up $1 million for the hip hop legend’s murder.
Court papers filed last week in a Nevada court in the case against Duane “Keefe D” Davis, the former Los Angeles-area gang leader accused of orchestrating Shakur’s killing, include several interviews law enforcement took of Davis in the last two decades.
Prosecutors included a transcript of a “Surreptitiously Recorded Interview” with Davis carried out by Las Vegas Metropolitan Police in 2009 along with several other media interviews where he repeated his years-long claims about Combs’ alleged connection to Shakur’s murder.
Davis had made allegations against Combs for more than 15 years, but the music mogul has not been named in any investigation connected to Shakur’s killing.
An attorney for Combs did not return a request for comment by NewsNation.
Combs has denied any involvement in previous statements saying the “story is beyond ridiculous and completely false,” in a 2008 interview with AllHipHop.com.
He does face a different mounting list of civil lawsuits that allege abuse and sexual assault by multiple victims spanning over 30 years and has been notified by federal authorities that he is the subject of an ongoing criminal investigation.
Shakur’s family has reportedly hired a legal team to look into the resurfaced allegations implicating Combs in the late rapper’s killing, according to TMZ.
Shakur, 25, died in September 1996, one week after being shot in Las Vegas while driving in a car with Marion “Suge” Knight, who owned the record label Death Row Records with which he was signed.
Keefe D’s claims about Diddy, Tupac and ‘Suge’ Knight
Davis discusses Combs multiple times in relation to Shakur’s killing in the transcript from his 2009 interview conducted by undercover police.
“Does he (Combs) play a role in this thing?” Davis is asked by police who are referring to Shakur’s murder.
He answers, “Yes… Yeah, I think he did.”
Davis claims Combs allegedly was afraid of “Suge” Knight who owned a rival record label. He also stated Diddy disliked Shakur because the rapper called him out on his songs.
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FILE – Duane “Keffe D” Davis, who is accused of orchestrating the 1996 slaying of hip-hop icon Tupac Shakur, is led into the courtroom during a status hearing at the Regional Justice Center, on Tuesday, April 23, 2024, in Las Vegas. Davis will ask a judge next week on June 24, to let him out of jail pending trial on a murder charge. (Bizuayehu Tesfaye/Las Vegas Review-Journal via AP) -
FILE – Rapper Tupac Shakur, left, and Death Row Records Chairman Marion “Suge” Knight, attend a voter registration event in South Central Los Angeles, August 15, 1996. Shakur’s shooting in a New York recording studio in the mid-1990s sparked hip-hop’s biggest rivalry and led to the shocking deaths of two of the genre’s greatest stars. Shakur and Notorious B.I.G. were gunned down in drive-by shootings only six months apart. Nearly three decades later, the recent arrest of longtime suspect Duane “Keffe D” Davis has ignited another wave of intrigue in their unsolved murders. (AP Photo/Frank Wiese, File) -
A booking photo of Duane “Keefe D” Davis is shown on a television monitor as Clark County Sheriff Kevin McMahill (L) and Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Lt. Jason Johansson speak during a news conference at the LVMPD headquarters to brief media members on Davis’ arrest and indictment for the 1996 murder of Tupac Shakur on September 29, 2023 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
Combs allegedly made a call on Knight’s “head” at a hotel room in front of more than 40 people, Davis claims saying, “He was kinda scared of the guy — he — we was at a hotel and he, like man, ah, I would give anything for that dude’s head.”
Knight is currently serving a 28-year sentence connected to the death of businessman Terry Carter in an unrelated California case.
Davis also claimed Combs hated Shakur and believed he deserved to have something done to him for “starting” the whole rivalry.
Combs allegedly said “f— that dude, ah, yeah, and didn’t he think we got to have something done, after all this s– started,” according to Davis.
Davis’ attorney did not return a request for comment by NewsNation.
Despite Davis’ resurfaced claims, there is likely no evidence linking Combs to Shakur’s death, Katie Cherkasky, a criminal defense attorney and former federal prosecutor, told NewsNation.
“It sounds kind of like something that was never substantiated with evidence,” she said. “There wouldn’t be any reason for the feds to delay in bringing an indictment or bringing the information to a grand jury earlier if they believed that there was credible information and he was connected to that.”
However, Cherkasky adds, “There’s not specifically a statute of limitations issue on the charges, and so if there was new information that had become available, then certainly they could look into it.”
Keefe D claims Diddy never paid him for the killing
Davis claims that he did not intend to go after Shakur and Knight the night of the 1996 killing but that the opportunity presented itself when they saw the two in a car, court documents stated.
That’s when his nephew Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson allegedly shot at them both, Davis said. Anderson was killed in an unrelated shooting two years later.
Davis claimed Combs allegedly paid the money for the hit on Tupac to Eric “Von Zip” Martin, another man in the car with him.
Davis referred to Martin in the transcript as “one of Puffy’s boys,” meaning he was associated with Combs.
“You think during that time period Zip got paid…by Puffy,” police asked, to which Davis answered “Yeah.”
In the document, prosecutors note that “defendant has asserted publicly that he only told on himself and wasn’t trying to provide evidence against anyone else in his conversations with police. However, this statement belies this claim, as he suggested that Sean Combs paid Eric Von Martin a million dollars for the killings as well as offered to set up a surreptitious phone call with Terrence Brown, the driver, who, at the time, was still alive.”
Davis also claimed he tried to get money from Martin and Combs but that both avoided him for years and that eventually he never received anything for Shakur’s murder.
In the transcript, Davis said the whole incident ruined his life.
“I wish I never met Puff Daddy, period. I swear to God. He messed up my life, man. I was, I was rich, up under the radar, “ he said.
“It’s all gone.”
