LAS VEGAS – A former Los Angeles gang leader accused of killing hip-hop music legend Tupac Shakur in Las Vegas in 1996 will petition a judge next week to be released from jail so he can prepare for his murder trial.
Duane “Keffe D” Davis’ attorney submitted filings on Thursday, and a court scheduled a hearing for Tuesday, during which Davis will request permission to post a $750,000 bond in order to be released to house arrest with electronic monitoring.
Davis’ defense attorney, Carl Arnold, and a spokeswoman did not immediately respond to email and phone queries regarding the court filing on Friday.
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Davis pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and has been held at the Clark County Detention Center in Las Vegas since his arrest on September 29. His trial is slated for November 4. If convicted, he may face life in prison.
Prosecutors requested Clark County District Court Judge Carli Kierny to order a “source hearing” for Davis to show that any cash used to gain his release was properly obtained.
Representatives from Crum & Forster Insurance and North River Insurance Co., the Morristown, New Jersey-based bond backers mentioned in the court document, did not return phone calls Friday.
Davis is originally from Compton, California, but has spent the last few years with his wife and son in Henderson, a Las Vegas suburb.
He and prosecutors claim he is the only one still alive of four people who were in a car when shots were fired in the September 1996 shooting that killed Shakur and injured rap entrepreneur Marion “Suge” Knight at an intersection near the Las Vegas Strip. Knight is serving a 28-year sentence in a California prison for an unrelated crime, using a vehicle to kill a Los Angeles-area man in 2015.
In the 27 years since Shakur’s death, Davis has publicly said that he was the orchestrator of the shooting, not the gunman. A renewed effort by Las Vegas police to investigate the case resulted in a search warrant and raid on his Henderson home last July.
Prosecutors claim Davis incriminated himself in police and media interviews dating back to 2008, as well as in a 2019 tell-all biography about his life as the leader of a Compton gang.
Davis said in his book that he was granted immunity when he alerted authorities in Los Angeles about the fatal murders of Shakur and rival rapper Christopher Wallace six months later. Wallace was referred to as The Notorious B.I.G. or Biggie Smalls.
Arnold contends that Davis’ word cannot be trusted and that his claims were fabricated so that he might profit.
“He is giving different stories,” Arnold told reporters outside a courtroom in April.
Arnold stated that he did not expect Davis to testify at trial, but he planned to summon Knight to testify. According to abcnews, police and prosecutors lack proof Davis was in Las Vegas at the time of Shakur’s death and do not have essential evidence, such as the gun or car used in the shooting.