Suge gets 28 years for slay
Suge Knight was sentenced to 28 years behind bars on Thursday for running over and killing a man in 2015 — as the victim’s daughter excoriated the rap mogul as “a disgusting, selfish disgrace to the human species.”
The 53-year-old cofounder of Death Row Records, whose real name is Marion Knight, showed no emotion as the family of victim Terry Carter took turns lashing into him in a Los Angeles court.
“We’ve been here 93 times, 94 court dates we’ve had to endure,” said Carter’s daughter Crystal, according to Fox News. “I’ve always wanted justice for my dad, but now we finally got it.”
The emotional hearing marked the culmination of a years-long court drama in which Knight claimed that he acted in self-defense and that Carter was a close friend.
But in a letter read aloud in court, Carter’s wife, Lillian, said the two hadn’t been friendly in years.
“These children have been robbed of the only father they know. By God’s grace, I am surviving. Not living, surviving. This is a nightmare,” the widow wrote. “I am no longer the mother, sister, wife I once was. I am no longer a wife because of the defendant’s senseless actions.”
She continued: “Because of the defendant I have an endless flood of tears. No matter how hard I try to keep them back they continue to flow.”
Knight, who was out on bail in a 2014 robbery case, was caught on video repeatedly driving his pickup truck over rival Cle “Bone” Sloan and then fatally knocking into Carter, 55, before peeling away.
Sloan, a consultant on the NWA biopic “Straight Outta Compton,” survived.
Last month, Knight dodged a trial on murder and attempted-murder charges by pleading no contest to voluntary manslaughter.
Dressed in an orange jumpsuit and wearing a large cross, he did not address the court Thursday.
The prison sentence caps a long decline for the rap mogul. Death Row Records, which he cofounded with Dr. Dre, had launched the careers of Snoop Dogg and Tupac Shakur, but he lost control of the label after it was forced into bankruptcy.
Knight, who has felony convictions for armed robbery and assault, was in the car with Shakur when Shakur was fatally shot in a Las Vegas drive-by in 1996.
In California, voluntary manslaughter carries a sentence of 11 years in prison, but Knight’s previous convictions trigger the state’s three-strikes law, which doubles the penalty for manslaughter and adds six years. His rap sheet also makes him ineligible for parole.
Knight’s plea deal also resolves two other cases, both from 2014, when he was accused of stealing a camera from a woman and sending threatening texts to “Straight Outta Compton” director F. Gary Gray.