Ex-gang leader accused in Tupac Shakur killing won't be released on bond, judge rules

LAS VEGAS (AP) — A judge on Tuesday again rejected a request to free an ailing former Los Angeles-area gang leader ahead of his murder trial in the 1996 killing of hip-hop star Tupac Shakur, saying she suspects a cover-up related to the source of the funds for his bond.

The decision from Clark District Court Judge Carli Kierny came after an attorney for Duane “Keffe D” Davis said he would provide additional financial records to prove that the music record executive offering to underwrite Davis’ $750,000 bail obtained the money legally. Kierny said she was unconvinced after receiving two identical letters apparently from an entertainment company that music record executive Cash “Wack 100” Jones says wired him the funds as payment for his work.

One letter was signed with a name that does not have any ties to the company, the judge said, while the second letter included a misspelled name and a return address tied to a doctor’s office.

“I have a sense that things are trying to be covered up,” Kierny said.

The hearing took a turn when Davis’ lawyer, Carl Arnold, said the bail bond agent used by Davis had provided the entertainment company with instructions on the language for the letters and could therefore testify about their legitimacy.

In a scathing response, prosecutor Binu Palal said the bond dealer may have committed a felony crime by submitting “a false document to this court.”

“The state takes that very seriously,” he said. “Be advised that it will not go uninvestigated.”

Palal declined after court to comment. Arnold appeared at the hearing via Zoom and a spokesperson for him didn’t immediately respond to an email message seeking comment afterward.

Davis has sought to be released since shortly after his September 2023 arrest, which made him the only person ever to be charged in one of hip-hop’s most enduring mysteries.

Kierny previously rejected Davis’ bid to have Jones put up $112,500 to secure Davis’ release, saying she was not convinced that Davis and Jones weren’t planning to profit. She also said she couldn’t determine if Jones wasn’t serving as a “middleman” on behalf of another unnamed person.

Nevada has a law, sometimes called a “slayer statute,” that prohibits convicted killers 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 put up money for Davis because Davis was fighting cancer and had “always been a monumental person in our community ... especially the urban community.”

Davis has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder. Also Tuesday, Kierny pushed back the start of Davis’ trial from Nov. 4 to March 17.

Davis and prosecutors say he’s the only person still alive who was in a car from which shots were fired into another car nearly 28 years ago, killing Shakur and wounding rap music mogul Marion “Suge” Knight. Prosecutors allege that the gunfire that killed Shakur in Las Vegas stemmed from competition between East Coast members of a Bloods gang sect and West Coast groups of a Crips sect, including Davis, for dominance in a genre known at the time as “gangsta rap.”