Cover-up alleged in B.I.G. slaying

Cover-up alleged in B.I.G. slaying
Article says LAPD, Times conspired
By Beth Barrett, Staff Writer / LA Daily News
http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_3274065
Allegations published Friday in a Rolling Stone magazine article raise new questions about a possible cover-up of critical information about the 1997 slaying of rapper Notorious B.I.G. and the possible role of Rampart scandal figure Rafael Perez and another former LAPD officer.

The lengthy article by Randall Sullivan, author of the book "Labyrinth" about the killing, contends that the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles Times failed to engage possible links between the slaying of Christopher Wallace (Notorious B.I.G.) on March 9, 1997, in Los Angeles and Perez and former Officer David Mack and their ties to rap music producer Marion "Suge" Knight's Death Row Records.

Similar allegations were published in the online magazine FrontPageMagazine.com by writer Jan Golab, who said new information about the role of the LAPD in the investigation could increase the city's liability in a pending federal lawsuit brought by the slain rap star's family.

While the articles raise many of the same previously published questions about the officers' links to the unsolved slayings of Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac Shakur - who died in Las Vegas on Sept. 13, 1996, days after being shot - it is their more strongly drawn connection to Rampart and reams of documents ordered released by U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper that could change the complexion of the family's complaint, which is expected to be amended for a new trial. A mistrial was declared last summer when an LAPD officer acknowledged that investigative records had been withheld from the plaintiffs.

Attorney Perry Sanders, representing the rapper's family, seized on the new information.

"We had never focused on the Rampart aspect," Sanders said Friday. "Now in hindsight, now that we've seen how things unfolded, that theory could make complete sense."

Sanders said Rampart - a scandal that cost the city tens of millions of dollars and led to the federal consent decree levied on the LAPD - got "tons of attention" while "cops working with gangsters got almost no attention."

"I think anything the city has intentionally done wrong by way of a cover-up ... all that could increase liability," said Sanders, who said he anticipates reviewing 81 CDs and other relevant materials being released by the court.

Sullivan, in an interview, said, "LAPD and the Los Angeles Times conspired to protect an LAPD officer involved in the killing of Biggie Smalls, i.e. Mack, with possible Perez involvement."

Added Golab: "It was about damage control."

Notorious B.I.G.'s potential lifetime earnings were estimated at $362 million in a court report, the magazine said. Assistant City Attorney Don Vincent said the family's original settlement demand was in the $400 million range.

Vincent said there are no ongoing settlement talks because "so much money" is being demanded, and the city believes it will prevail.

The plaintiffs are to be awarded fees and costs out of the mistrial, and are asking for about $1.5 million. The city is expected to counter with a lower amount Monday.

Sullivan said he believes then-LAPD Chief Bernard Parks, an African-American and now a city councilman, was motivated by "personal ambition" to contain the scandal to the Rampart allegations rather than deal with the potentially more explosive connections between African-American cops working for, and potentially involved in the slaying of, the rappers.

The former Los Angeles Herald-Examiner columnist said the Los Angeles Times ignored or failed to report key leads, instead taking the word of LAPD investigators that they were no longer pursuing the cops-rapper conspiracy theory, specifically Mack's ties to a man named Amir Muhammad.

The Times in December 1999 reported that one theory LAPD detectives were looking at was whether Mack had Muhammad, also known as Harry Billups, carry out the shooting of Notorious B.I.G. outside the Petersen Automotive Museum. In a later story written by Chuck Philips, Muhammad denied any involvement, and the Times reported that the police no longer had him under scrutiny.

Parks called the allegations groundless, and also challenged reports repeated in Rolling Stone that a picture of his daughter posing with Mack and Perez was found in a police raid.

"I think that sounds like a desperate attorney trying to sue the city," he said.

Parks said if he'd wanted to avoid embarrassment, he would never have pursued Rampart aggressively, including a departmental board of inquiry into the scandal that led to a federal consent decree.

"If we were going to put a lid on it, because it was too embarrassing, it makes no sense. How can it be more embarrassing than what we uncovered?"

Parks said he never had trouble firing or disciplining Mack or other black officers. And he said his daughter denied knowing Perez and that the picture has never emerged.

"Why would we create Rampart at a cost of well over $100 million as a diversion for three black officers already in prison? It doesn't make sense."

Parks said Muhammad - who was the first person to visit Mack in prison - was eliminated as a suspect after review by the LAPD, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office and FBI.

"How many corrupt law enforcement officials can we find covering up for Bernard Parks?"

Sullivan said details about Muhammad were overlooked by the Times, including his Oct. 21, 1998, arrest in Chino for "firearm brandishing" next to a vehicle containing ex-girlfriend Angelique Mitchell and her new boyfriend - who died a few days later in what police and coroner's reports called a murder-suicide. Muhammad was cited for carrying a concealed weapon in the case, but later had it expunged from his record, the magazine said.

Marc Duvoisin, Times assistant managing editor, in a statement said Sullivan's "claim that the Los Angeles Times tried to keep the lid on evidence implicating rogue police officers in the murder of rap star Notorious B.I.G. is without any foundation in fact.

"The main elements of the murder-conspiracy theory Sullivan expounds were first reported in the Times - the same Times he now accuses of trying to keep the truth buried.

"When subsequent developments cast doubt on these allegations and the conspiracy theory, the Times wrote about those as well. But Sullivan makes no mention of the original articles, even as he parrots their contents (without acknowledgment).

"In so doing, he forfeits any claim to be taken seriously."

The Times accused Sullivan of an "animus" for Philips, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the rap industry.

Sources said there was considerable disagreement at the Times over whether Philips' story undermined the original report.

Sullivan in an e-mail statement accused the Times of "attacking me personally, while entirely avoiding the subject of its own outrageously distorted coverage of this case.

"The claim that the Times reported `the main elements of the murder-conspiracy theory' is not quite as laughable as their claim that 'subsequent developments cast doubts on those allegations.'

"The only subsequent developments in this regard were the Times' own articles, authored by Chuck Philips, that attempted to dismiss the 'conspiracy theory' on the basis of absurdly vague and obviously self-serving statements by the LAPD and by Amir Muhammad that went entirely unchallenged or investigated."

Sullivan also criticized Philips' reporting of allegations that implicated Notorious B.I.G. in Shakur's death, accusing Philips of relying "entirely upon" anonymous members of the Crips gang in his article.

In the Rolling Stone article, he reported that lawyers for the Wallace estate had produced invoices showing that the rapper was in a New York recording studio on the night he supposedly was in Las Vegas meeting with a Crips "emissary" resulting in the killing of Shakur by Crips gang members.

The Times said Philips' story "has without all challenges to its accuracy, including Sullivan's. It remains the definitive account of the Shakur slaying."

Beth Barrett, (818) 713-3731

beth.barrett@dailynews.com