Clayton Hill: Dawoud Muhammad Murdered Notorious B.I.G., I Was An Accessory After The Fact
7/5/11
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/05/clayton-hill-dawoud-muhammad-murdered-notorious-big_n_890399.html
Clayton Hill, a former member of the Nation of Islam and currently incarcerated at a federal prison in Chicago, has come forward and told HipHopDX.com that he played an accessory to the murder of rapper Notorious BIG after the fact, and knows who shot and killed the rapper.
BIG, or Christopher Wallace, was killed while driving away from a party in Los Angeles on March 9, 1997. Hill claims that, acting under orders from a higher-up at Muhammad Mosque #15 in Atlanta, he met at a Greyhound station a man from Los Angeles who called himself Dawoud Muhammad and took from him possession of a firearm that he claimed he used to shoot the rapper.
"[Dawoud Muhammad] stated to me that he was on the run for the murder [of The Notorious B.I.G.]," Hill told HipHopDx.com. "He disclosed that he was the shooter of The Notorious B.I.G. because he (Dawoud) was a former Blood gang member and was paid to do so."
Hill will soon release the e-book, "Diary of an Ex-Terrorist," about his time with the Nation of Islam.
"I told [Dawoud Muhammad] I had instructions to collect some property from him," he writes in that book. "He must have been given the same instructions because he didn't hesitate or show any signs of doubt as he bent over and removed a trash liner out of a waste can and handed it to me to hold open. He reached into the duffle bag he brought with him and pulled out a semi-automatic hand gun that could have been a .9 millimeter or a .40 caliber wrapped in a white undershirt. Carefully he placed it into the trash bag making sure his hands never touched any of the exposed parts of the gun."
Recently, the long-frustrated inquiry into BIG's murder was "re-invigorated" by new evidence, CNN reported in January. At the center of the case is former LAPD Detective Russell Poole, who resigned from the force in 1999 after feeling as if his investigation was being stonewalled from within.
Poole claimed that former LAPD officer David Mack, a Tupac superfan, and Amir Muhammad carried out the shooting of BIG, as ordered by Death Row Records founder Suge Knight, who was incarcerated at the time. Shakur was murdered months before, part of the east coast-west coast rap rivalry, and Knight, some speculate, may have been seeking revenge.
Months later, Mack was sent to prison for bank robbery. Poole insisted that officers in the LAPD, working off duty for Death Row, thwarted the investigation, telling CNN that he, "was getting too close to the truth."
In 2005, a paid informant who said that Knight ordered the murder pulled back his testimony, saying that he was a paranoid schizophrenic and his identification was fraudulent.
When HipHopDx.com asked Hill whether his memory of Dawoud Muhammad matches pictures of Amir Muhammad, Hill said, "I have looked at the pics... and although I cannot say conclusively and with absolute certainty because that was 14 years ago, Amir Muhammad looks like the person who used the name Dawoud."
Hill claims -- and a HipHopDx.com source confirmed -- that he met with the government about the content of his confession, though his inability to identify the killer in photos hurt his credibility, at least in terms of usability in court. Hill is currently serving time for Conspiracy to Defraud the United States and Identity Theft.
Showing posts with label Notorious B.I.G.. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Notorious B.I.G.. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Jimmy Henchman Associate Admits to Role in Robbery/Shooting of Tupac
Apologizes To Pac & B.I.G.'s Mothers
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
By Grandmaster Grouchy Greg and Nolan Strong
http://www.allhiphop.com/stories/news/archive/2011/06/15/22790289.aspx
(AllHipHop News) A man has admitted to being involved in the attack on rap star Tupac Shakur in 1994, inside Manhattan's Quad Studios in November of 1994, after allegedly being paid $2,500 dollars by James "Jimmy Henchman" Rosemond.
Dexter Isaac, a former friend of Rosemond, is an inmate currently serving life in prison for murder, robbery and other offenses.
Isaac came forward Wednesday (June 15th) with the information on the eve of what would be Tupac's 40th birthday.
He confessed to his involvement in the November 30th, 1994 robbery of Tupac Shakur to AllHipHop.com, after Jimmy Henchman identified him in a statement, relating to Henchman's indictment for dealing numerous kilos of cocaine.
"I want to apologize to his family [Tupac Shakur] and for the mistake I did for that sucker [Jimmy Henchman]," Dexter Isaac told AllHipHop.com from prison. "I am trying to clean it up to give [Tupac and Biggie's] mothers some closure."
Henchman, who is currently on the run from Federal officials, claimed that Dexter Isaac, along with other incarcerated inmates were cooperating with the government in an investigation of his alleged drug dealing activities.
"If the government is relying on informants like Winston “Winnie” Harris, a convicted drug dealer and Jamaican deportee, who came to me and motioned via hand signal that he was forced to wear a wire and begged me to skip town or Dexter Isaac who is serving life in prison plus 30 years, then I’m sure I will not be offered a fair trial," Henchman said in a statement released to AllHipHop.com in May of 2011.
Dexter Isaac told AllHipHop.com that he decided to confess to the robbery to prove Jimmy Henchman's involvement, in addition to clearing his conscience for his role in the robbery.
Isaac said he was comfortable going on record relating to the robbery and shooting which resulted in Pac being reportedly shot, five times.
Since the statute of limitations had expired, legally, no one can be prosecuted for the assault at this time.
Isaac was a lifelong friend of Jimmy Henchman, who helped the former mogul set up his first company, Henchman Entertainment, in 1989.
Isaac claims he never cooperated with the government in any investigation, and Jimmy Henchman's allegations infuriated him.
Isaac, who is also from Brooklyn, has long been suspected of being involved in the Quad shooting of Tupac Shakur, along with an associate name Spencer "Scooter" Bowens, who is also serving a life sentence and another man named George Roland Campbell.
According to the confession below, Dexter Isaac not only knows what happened to Tupac Shakur's jewelry, but he claims he is also in possession of the Hip-Hop star's chain that was taken during the altercation on that infamous night in November of 1994.
The shooting on November 30th, was the start of a deadly feud that resulted in the murders of both Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G.
Their murders have never been solved.
Isaac was indicted by the government in 1998 and was subsequently sentenced to life in prison for murder, robbery, fraud and witness intimidation charges.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
By Grandmaster Grouchy Greg and Nolan Strong
http://www.allhiphop.com/stories/news/archive/2011/06/15/22790289.aspx
(AllHipHop News) A man has admitted to being involved in the attack on rap star Tupac Shakur in 1994, inside Manhattan's Quad Studios in November of 1994, after allegedly being paid $2,500 dollars by James "Jimmy Henchman" Rosemond.
Dexter Isaac, a former friend of Rosemond, is an inmate currently serving life in prison for murder, robbery and other offenses.
Isaac came forward Wednesday (June 15th) with the information on the eve of what would be Tupac's 40th birthday.
He confessed to his involvement in the November 30th, 1994 robbery of Tupac Shakur to AllHipHop.com, after Jimmy Henchman identified him in a statement, relating to Henchman's indictment for dealing numerous kilos of cocaine.
"I want to apologize to his family [Tupac Shakur] and for the mistake I did for that sucker [Jimmy Henchman]," Dexter Isaac told AllHipHop.com from prison. "I am trying to clean it up to give [Tupac and Biggie's] mothers some closure."
Henchman, who is currently on the run from Federal officials, claimed that Dexter Isaac, along with other incarcerated inmates were cooperating with the government in an investigation of his alleged drug dealing activities.
"If the government is relying on informants like Winston “Winnie” Harris, a convicted drug dealer and Jamaican deportee, who came to me and motioned via hand signal that he was forced to wear a wire and begged me to skip town or Dexter Isaac who is serving life in prison plus 30 years, then I’m sure I will not be offered a fair trial," Henchman said in a statement released to AllHipHop.com in May of 2011.
Dexter Isaac told AllHipHop.com that he decided to confess to the robbery to prove Jimmy Henchman's involvement, in addition to clearing his conscience for his role in the robbery.
Isaac said he was comfortable going on record relating to the robbery and shooting which resulted in Pac being reportedly shot, five times.
Since the statute of limitations had expired, legally, no one can be prosecuted for the assault at this time.
Isaac was a lifelong friend of Jimmy Henchman, who helped the former mogul set up his first company, Henchman Entertainment, in 1989.
Isaac claims he never cooperated with the government in any investigation, and Jimmy Henchman's allegations infuriated him.
Isaac, who is also from Brooklyn, has long been suspected of being involved in the Quad shooting of Tupac Shakur, along with an associate name Spencer "Scooter" Bowens, who is also serving a life sentence and another man named George Roland Campbell.
According to the confession below, Dexter Isaac not only knows what happened to Tupac Shakur's jewelry, but he claims he is also in possession of the Hip-Hop star's chain that was taken during the altercation on that infamous night in November of 1994.
The shooting on November 30th, was the start of a deadly feud that resulted in the murders of both Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G.
Their murders have never been solved.
Isaac was indicted by the government in 1998 and was subsequently sentenced to life in prison for murder, robbery, fraud and witness intimidation charges.
Monday, April 14, 2008
Keys Talks About Her Conspiracy Theories
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080411/D8VVUAHG0.html
Keys Talks About Her Conspiracy Theories
Apr 11, 2008
NEW YORK (AP) - There's another side to Alicia Keys: conspiracy theorist. The Grammy-winning singer-songwriter tells Blender magazine: "'Gangsta rap' was a ploy to convince black people to kill each other. 'Gangsta rap' didn't exist."
Keys, 27, said she's read several Black Panther autobiographies and wears a gold AK-47 pendant around her neck "to symbolize strength, power and killing 'em dead," according to an interview in the magazine's May issue, on newsstands Tuesday.
Another of her theories: That the bicoastal feud between slain rappers Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G. was fueled "by the government and the media, to stop another great black leader from existing."
Keys' AK-47 jewelry came as a surprise to her mother, who is quoted as telling Blender: "She wears what? That doesn't sound like Alicia." Keys' publicist, Theola Borden, said Keys was on vacation and unavailable for comment.
Though she's known for her romantic tunes, she told Blender that she wants to write more political songs. If black leaders such as the late Black Panther Huey Newton "had the outlets our musicians have today, it'd be global. I have to figure out a way to do it myself," she said.
The multiplatinum songstress behind the hits "Fallin'" and "No One" most recently had success with her latest CD, "As I Am," which sold millions.
---
On the Net:
Blender:
http://www.blender.com/
Alicia Keys:
http://www.aliciakeys.com/
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
The Times apologizes over article on rapper
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-me-tupac27mar27,0,2043351.story
The Times apologizes over article on rapper
By James Rainey
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
11:26 PM PDT, March 26, 2008
A Los Angeles Times story about a brutal 1994 attack on rap superstar Tupac Shakur was partially based on documents that appear to have been fabricated, the reporter and editor responsible for the story said Wednesday.
Reporter Chuck Philips and his supervisor, Deputy Managing Editor Marc Duvoisin, issued statements of apology Wednesday afternoon. The statements came after The Times took withering criticism for the Shakur article, which appeared on latimes.com last week and two days later in the paper's Calendar section.
The criticism came first from The Smoking Gun website, which said the newspaper had been the victim of a hoax, and then from subjects of the story, who said they had been defamed.
"In relying on documents that I now believe were fake, I failed to do my job," Philips said in a statement Wednesday. "I'm sorry."
In his statement, Duvoisin added: "We should not have let ourselves be fooled. That we were is as much my fault as Chuck's. I deeply regret that we let our readers down."
Times Editor Russ Stanton announced that the newspaper would launch an internal review of the documents and the reporting surrounding the story. Stanton said he took the criticisms of the March 17 report "very seriously."
"We published this story with the sincere belief that the documents were genuine, but our good intentions are beside the point," Stanton said in a statement.
"The bottom line is that the documents we relied on should not have been used. We apologize both to our readers and to those referenced in the documents and, as a result, in the story. We are continuing to investigate this matter and will fulfill our journalistic responsibility for critical self-examination."
The story first appeared March 17 on latimes.com under the headline "An Attack on Tupac Shakur Launched a Hip-Hop War." The article described a Nov. 30, 1994, ambush at Quad Recording Studios in New York, where the rap singer was pistol-whipped and shot several times by three men. No one has been charged in the crime, but before his death two years later, Shakur said repeatedly that he suspected allies of rap impresario Sean "Diddy" Combs.
The assault touched off a bicoastal war between Shakur and fellow adherents of West Coast rap and their East Coast rivals, most famously represented by Christopher Wallace, better known as Notorious B.I.G. Both Shakur and Wallace ultimately died violently.
The Times story said the paper had obtained "FBI records" in which a confidential informant accused two men of helping to set up the attack on Shakur -- James Rosemond, a prominent rap talent manager, and James Sabatino, identified in the story as a promoter. The story said the two allegedly wanted to curry favor with Combs and believed Shakur had disrespected them.
The purported FBI records are the documents Philips and Duvoisin now believe were faked.
The story provoked vehement denials from lawyers for Combs and Rosemond, both before and after publication.
Rosemond said in a statement Wednesday that the Times article created "a potentially violent climate in the hip-hop community." His attorney, Marc Lichtman, added: "I would suggest to Mr. Philips and his editors that they immediately print an apology and take out their checkbooks -- or brace themselves for an epic lawsuit."
Although The Times has not identified the source of the purported FBI reports, The Smoking Gun (www.the smokinggun.com) asserted that the documents were forged by Sabatino. The website identified him as a convicted con man with a history of elaborate fantasies designed to exaggerate his place in the rap music firmament. He is currently in federal prison on fraud charges.
"The Times appears to have been hoaxed by an imprisoned con man and accomplished document forger, an audacious swindler who has created a fantasy world in which he managed hip-hop luminaries," the Smoking Gun reported.
Combs' lawyer Howard Weitzman, in a letter to Times Publisher David Hiller, called the story inaccurate. He expanded an earlier demand for a retraction and said he believed that The Times' conduct met the legal standard for "actual malice," which would allow a public figure such as Combs to obtain damages in a libel suit.
The purported FBI reports were filed by Sabatino with a federal court in Miami four months ago in connection with a lawsuit against Combs in which he claimed he was never paid for rap recordings in which he said he was involved. Sabatino, 31, said he had obtained the documents to help him prepare his defense in a criminal case against him in 2002, according to the Smoking Gun.
Philips, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, said he believed in the authenticity of the documents in part because they had been filed in court. But the Smoking Gun's sharply critical review said The Times had overlooked numerous misspellings and unusual acronyms and redactions that could have cast doubt on the documents' authenticity.
Moreover, the documents appeared to have been prepared on a typewriter, the Smoking Gun account noted, adding that a former FBI supervisor estimated that the bureau ceased using typewriters about 30 years ago. The website said its reporters had learned that the documents could not be found in an FBI database.
The website also described unexplained coincidences that made it appear Sabatino had composed the documents from prison. The Smoking Gun showed that Sabatino had filed court papers on his own behalf that had "obvious similarities" in typography and "remarkably similar spelling deficiencies" to those in the purported FBI documents.
The Smoking Gun used a report from Sabatino's sentencing in 2003 for fraud and identity theft to suggest that his history of lying began in childhood. When the boy's mother left home at 11, he told a teacher that his mother had died in an accident, rather than acknowledge the truth, said his father, Peter Sabatino, according to the website. It posted what it said was a letter that the father wrote to the judge.
At the sentencing, the younger Sabatino told the judge that he had been battling a "demon for a very long time" and that his motivation for committing fraud was "to make attention to myself," according to another court document posted by the website. The headline on the Smoking Gun story, over a picture of the picture of the portly Sabatino: "Big Phat Liar."
Philips said in an interview that he had believed the documents were legitimate because, in the reporting he had already done on the story, he had heard many of the same details.
He said a source had led him to three prison inmates who purportedly carried out the attack on Shakur. One of those inmates implicated the planners of the attack and another implied who was involved, Philips said. Two others who said they witnessed the attack corroborated portions of the scenario described in the article, he said. None of the sources were named in the story.
Philips also said the events the sources described fit with previous accounts in the media and even in Shakur's songs.
Still, Philips said he wished he had done more.
Philips said he sought to check the authenticity of the documents with the U.S. attorney's office in New York, which had handled the investigation of the attack on Shakur, and with a retired FBI agent, but did not directly ask the FBI about them. The U.S. attorney's office declined to comment, while the former FBI agent said the documents appeared legitimate, Philips said.
His statement said he "approached this article the same way I've approached every article I've ever written: in pursuit of the truth. I now believe the truth here is that I got duped. For this, I take full responsibility and I apologize."
Philips has spent years digging into the rap music business and had won a reputation as a dogged streetwise reporter. He and Times reporter Michael Hiltzik shared a Pulitzer Prize in 1999 for beat reporting for their accounts of entertainment industry corruption, including illegal detoxification programs for celebrities.
Duvoisin has overseen many of The Times' most notable investigative projects in recent years.
The first significant tip that led to the Shakur story came nearly a year ago, Philips said. He conducted interviews and reported the story in the interim, then focused on the piece more intensively beginning in January.
The story was reviewed by Duvoisin and two editors on the copy desk.
Other investigative stories published by The Times in recent years have in some cases received the scrutiny of at least one more editor and often of the managing editor or editor of the newspaper. The Shakur piece did not receive that many layers of review.
Bob Steele, a journalism values scholar at the Poynter Institute, said he would not pass judgment on The Times' editing process.
"But any time you have a substantive investigative project you need multiple levels of quality control," Steele said. "You need contrarians within the organization who are going to be very skeptical."
The editor of Smoking Gun, Bill Bastone, who shepherded the website's critique, had been an acquaintance of Philips before the Shakur investigation. The two met not long ago for lunch, discussing their mutual passion for investigative reporting and other matters.
Bastone knew The Times would publish a story related to the attack on Shakur, and he said he had immediate misgivings when he saw the piece last week.
He said he called Philips to say "things just don't feel right about this."
Bastone said he "took no joy in doing this," adding, "We greatly respect your paper and Chuck and Chuck's work. . . . But I think what happened here is that this guy Sabatino is a master con man, and they got caught up with him."
james.rainey@latimes.com
The Times apologizes over article on rapper
By James Rainey
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
11:26 PM PDT, March 26, 2008
A Los Angeles Times story about a brutal 1994 attack on rap superstar Tupac Shakur was partially based on documents that appear to have been fabricated, the reporter and editor responsible for the story said Wednesday.
Reporter Chuck Philips and his supervisor, Deputy Managing Editor Marc Duvoisin, issued statements of apology Wednesday afternoon. The statements came after The Times took withering criticism for the Shakur article, which appeared on latimes.com last week and two days later in the paper's Calendar section.
The criticism came first from The Smoking Gun website, which said the newspaper had been the victim of a hoax, and then from subjects of the story, who said they had been defamed.
"In relying on documents that I now believe were fake, I failed to do my job," Philips said in a statement Wednesday. "I'm sorry."
In his statement, Duvoisin added: "We should not have let ourselves be fooled. That we were is as much my fault as Chuck's. I deeply regret that we let our readers down."
Times Editor Russ Stanton announced that the newspaper would launch an internal review of the documents and the reporting surrounding the story. Stanton said he took the criticisms of the March 17 report "very seriously."
"We published this story with the sincere belief that the documents were genuine, but our good intentions are beside the point," Stanton said in a statement.
"The bottom line is that the documents we relied on should not have been used. We apologize both to our readers and to those referenced in the documents and, as a result, in the story. We are continuing to investigate this matter and will fulfill our journalistic responsibility for critical self-examination."
The story first appeared March 17 on latimes.com under the headline "An Attack on Tupac Shakur Launched a Hip-Hop War." The article described a Nov. 30, 1994, ambush at Quad Recording Studios in New York, where the rap singer was pistol-whipped and shot several times by three men. No one has been charged in the crime, but before his death two years later, Shakur said repeatedly that he suspected allies of rap impresario Sean "Diddy" Combs.
The assault touched off a bicoastal war between Shakur and fellow adherents of West Coast rap and their East Coast rivals, most famously represented by Christopher Wallace, better known as Notorious B.I.G. Both Shakur and Wallace ultimately died violently.
The Times story said the paper had obtained "FBI records" in which a confidential informant accused two men of helping to set up the attack on Shakur -- James Rosemond, a prominent rap talent manager, and James Sabatino, identified in the story as a promoter. The story said the two allegedly wanted to curry favor with Combs and believed Shakur had disrespected them.
The purported FBI records are the documents Philips and Duvoisin now believe were faked.
The story provoked vehement denials from lawyers for Combs and Rosemond, both before and after publication.
Rosemond said in a statement Wednesday that the Times article created "a potentially violent climate in the hip-hop community." His attorney, Marc Lichtman, added: "I would suggest to Mr. Philips and his editors that they immediately print an apology and take out their checkbooks -- or brace themselves for an epic lawsuit."
Although The Times has not identified the source of the purported FBI reports, The Smoking Gun (www.the smokinggun.com) asserted that the documents were forged by Sabatino. The website identified him as a convicted con man with a history of elaborate fantasies designed to exaggerate his place in the rap music firmament. He is currently in federal prison on fraud charges.
"The Times appears to have been hoaxed by an imprisoned con man and accomplished document forger, an audacious swindler who has created a fantasy world in which he managed hip-hop luminaries," the Smoking Gun reported.
Combs' lawyer Howard Weitzman, in a letter to Times Publisher David Hiller, called the story inaccurate. He expanded an earlier demand for a retraction and said he believed that The Times' conduct met the legal standard for "actual malice," which would allow a public figure such as Combs to obtain damages in a libel suit.
The purported FBI reports were filed by Sabatino with a federal court in Miami four months ago in connection with a lawsuit against Combs in which he claimed he was never paid for rap recordings in which he said he was involved. Sabatino, 31, said he had obtained the documents to help him prepare his defense in a criminal case against him in 2002, according to the Smoking Gun.
Philips, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, said he believed in the authenticity of the documents in part because they had been filed in court. But the Smoking Gun's sharply critical review said The Times had overlooked numerous misspellings and unusual acronyms and redactions that could have cast doubt on the documents' authenticity.
Moreover, the documents appeared to have been prepared on a typewriter, the Smoking Gun account noted, adding that a former FBI supervisor estimated that the bureau ceased using typewriters about 30 years ago. The website said its reporters had learned that the documents could not be found in an FBI database.
The website also described unexplained coincidences that made it appear Sabatino had composed the documents from prison. The Smoking Gun showed that Sabatino had filed court papers on his own behalf that had "obvious similarities" in typography and "remarkably similar spelling deficiencies" to those in the purported FBI documents.
The Smoking Gun used a report from Sabatino's sentencing in 2003 for fraud and identity theft to suggest that his history of lying began in childhood. When the boy's mother left home at 11, he told a teacher that his mother had died in an accident, rather than acknowledge the truth, said his father, Peter Sabatino, according to the website. It posted what it said was a letter that the father wrote to the judge.
At the sentencing, the younger Sabatino told the judge that he had been battling a "demon for a very long time" and that his motivation for committing fraud was "to make attention to myself," according to another court document posted by the website. The headline on the Smoking Gun story, over a picture of the picture of the portly Sabatino: "Big Phat Liar."
Philips said in an interview that he had believed the documents were legitimate because, in the reporting he had already done on the story, he had heard many of the same details.
He said a source had led him to three prison inmates who purportedly carried out the attack on Shakur. One of those inmates implicated the planners of the attack and another implied who was involved, Philips said. Two others who said they witnessed the attack corroborated portions of the scenario described in the article, he said. None of the sources were named in the story.
Philips also said the events the sources described fit with previous accounts in the media and even in Shakur's songs.
Still, Philips said he wished he had done more.
Philips said he sought to check the authenticity of the documents with the U.S. attorney's office in New York, which had handled the investigation of the attack on Shakur, and with a retired FBI agent, but did not directly ask the FBI about them. The U.S. attorney's office declined to comment, while the former FBI agent said the documents appeared legitimate, Philips said.
His statement said he "approached this article the same way I've approached every article I've ever written: in pursuit of the truth. I now believe the truth here is that I got duped. For this, I take full responsibility and I apologize."
Philips has spent years digging into the rap music business and had won a reputation as a dogged streetwise reporter. He and Times reporter Michael Hiltzik shared a Pulitzer Prize in 1999 for beat reporting for their accounts of entertainment industry corruption, including illegal detoxification programs for celebrities.
Duvoisin has overseen many of The Times' most notable investigative projects in recent years.
The first significant tip that led to the Shakur story came nearly a year ago, Philips said. He conducted interviews and reported the story in the interim, then focused on the piece more intensively beginning in January.
The story was reviewed by Duvoisin and two editors on the copy desk.
Other investigative stories published by The Times in recent years have in some cases received the scrutiny of at least one more editor and often of the managing editor or editor of the newspaper. The Shakur piece did not receive that many layers of review.
Bob Steele, a journalism values scholar at the Poynter Institute, said he would not pass judgment on The Times' editing process.
"But any time you have a substantive investigative project you need multiple levels of quality control," Steele said. "You need contrarians within the organization who are going to be very skeptical."
The editor of Smoking Gun, Bill Bastone, who shepherded the website's critique, had been an acquaintance of Philips before the Shakur investigation. The two met not long ago for lunch, discussing their mutual passion for investigative reporting and other matters.
Bastone knew The Times would publish a story related to the attack on Shakur, and he said he had immediate misgivings when he saw the piece last week.
He said he called Philips to say "things just don't feel right about this."
Bastone said he "took no joy in doing this," adding, "We greatly respect your paper and Chuck and Chuck's work. . . . But I think what happened here is that this guy Sabatino is a master con man, and they got caught up with him."
james.rainey@latimes.com
Big Phat Liar
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2008/0325081sabatino1.html
Big Phat Liar
How a federal inmate duped the Los Angeles Times, fabricated FBI reports, and linked Sean "Diddy" Combs to 1994 ambush of Tupac Shakur
MARCH 26--Last week's bombshell Los Angeles Times report claiming that the 1994 shooting of Tupac Shakur in the lobby of a Manhattan recording studio was carried out by associates of Sean "Diddy" Combs and that the rap impresario knew of the plot beforehand was based largely on fabricated FBI reports, The Smoking Gun has learned.
The Times appears to have been hoaxed by an imprisoned con man and accomplished document forger, an audacious swindler who has created a fantasy world in which he managed hip-hop luminaries, conducted business with Combs, Shakur, Busta Rhymes, and The Notorious B.I.G., and even served as Combs's trusted emissary to Death Row Records boss Marion "Suge" Knight during the outset of hostilities in the bloody East Coast-West Coast rap feud.
The con man, James Sabatino, 31, has long sought to insinuate himself, after the fact, in a series of important hip-hop events, from Shakur's shooting to the murder of The Notorious B.I.G.. In fact, however, Sabatino was little more than a rap devotee, a wildly impulsive, overweight white kid from Florida whose own father once described him in a letter to a federal judge as "a disturbed young man who needed attention like a drug." Sabatino is pictured in the above mug shot.
The Times story, which was first posted online March 17 and then appeared in the newspaper itself last Wednesday, relied on "FBI records recently obtained by The Times" and interviews with several unnamed sources in its reexamination of the November 30, 1994 shooting of Shakur at Quad Studios near Times Square. Included in the paper's online package was a PDF of two key FBI interview reports cited in the 2800-word story, which was six months in the making and written by veteran reporter Chuck Philips, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1999 for his coverage of corruption in the entertainment industry.
In addition to the documents posted on the Times site, a third purported FBI interview report was included by Sabatino in court papers he filed four months ago in U.S. District Court in Miami. In that civil case, Sabatino is suing Combs for $16 million over an alleged soured business deal from nearly a decade ago. According to Sabatino's complaint, which he prepared and filed himself from the Allenwood federal penitentiary in White Deer, Pennsylvania, Combs stiffed him on a $175,000 payment for audio and video recordings Sabatino made in 1994 of The Notorious B.I.G. (real name: Christopher Wallace).
But those FBI reports, dubbed "302s" due to the numbered government form on which they are prepared, are nowhere to be found in the bureau's computerized Automated Case Support database, TSG has learned. The ACS system allows investigators to search various bureau indices to determine whether particular individuals, groups, or topics have been referred to in FBI "302" reports or various other bureau documents.
The suspect documents contain information supposedly provided to agents in the FBI's New York office by an unnamed "confidential source." The records, which Sabatino himself has distributed, conveniently contain black redaction marks covering up the name of the agent (or agents) who prepared the "302s" as well as the corresponding FBI case number. However, since the documents are filled with the names of individuals and corporations, they can be tracked within the FBI system by working backwards (by subjects as opposed to case number or agent name).
And while Sabatino claims to have been provided the FBI reports during the discovery phase of a 2002 criminal case, a federal law enforcement official involved in that successful prosecution told TSG that the probe was headed by Secret Service representatives and that the FBI had no role whatsoever in the case. The official added that, at the time, investigators "had no inkling" of Sabatino's supposed role in the rap music world and never saw investigative reports detailing his purported involvement with hip-hop's leading figures or its assorted bloody disputes.
Additionally, an examination of the three documents revealed that the bodies of the respective "302s" were actually created on a typewriter (the "frame" of the reports is consistent with an authentic "302" template). In some instances, you can see where one letter was typed on top of an existing character, a so-called overstrike. In an interview, Bruce Mouw, a former FBI supervisor who headed the bureau's pursuit of John Gotti, estimated that agents ceased using typewriters about 30 years ago.
Riddled with spelling and grammatical errors, the purported "302" documents vary sharply from standard FBI reports in terms of phraseology and use of certain acronyms, according to several law enforcement sources who examined the documents at TSG's request.
For example, the reports contain the acronyms "TNU," which apparently is short for "true name unknown," and "NFI," short for "no further information." Two ex-FBI agents said that they had never seen those acronyms in bureau reports. Both men also alerted to how the reports were dated, with month, day, and year set off with periods, instead of the customary slashes.
Most telling, though, are the obvious similarities (type size, font, line spacing, individual character renderings) between the purported "302s" and certain court filings created by Sabatino while he has been incarcerated at Allenwood (he was transferred last May from a Florida prison to the high-security penitentiary in the foothills of the Allegheny Mountains). As with all other Bureau of Prisons (BoP) facilities, Allenwood provides inmates with access to photocopying machines, office supplies, and typewriters, according to the BoP's 2008 Legal Resource Guide. Inmates, the guide states, are "permitted a reasonable amount of time...to conduct their own legal research and to prepare legal documents."
A comparison of the "302s" and Sabatino's own court filings shows that the authors of each set of documents share remarkably similar spelling deficiencies. For instance, the word "making" appears as "makeing" in both the "302s" and Sabatino's pro se court pleadings. Similarly, the authors also have difficulty with the word "during." It appears as "durring" in both sets of documents.
While a federal judge once referred to Sabatino as "articulate" and "an extraordinarily intelligent man," spelling and grammar are not strong suits for the ninth-grade dropout. And typewriters, of course, do not offer spell check.
After a reporter provided Philips and Marc Duvoisin, the deputy managing editor who edited the Times story, an account of TSG's findings, Duvoisin said that the newspaper would launch its own investigation to determine if the FBI documents cited in its story are real.
In response to a TSG interview request, Sabatino wrote a March 20 letter stating that "there is a lot of lies cirulating arround right now. But this is all going to backfire on Puff. I know him too well." As a result of the Times story, Sabatino wrote that he has been "receiving letters from all over the country. Reporters and regular people alike." While he offered to call a reporter and talk "off-the-record," Sabatino had not been heard from at press time.
The "302s" in question also carry redaction marks on a "government exhibit" sticker seen in the upper right corner of the opening pages of the three FBI reports. On the documents filed by Sabatino in his lawsuit against Combs, the number "3500" remains visible on the stickers, indicating that the material was turned over during the discovery phase of a criminal trial ("3500" refers to the section of the United States Code which entitles a defendant to receive prosecution records that could be used to impeach a trial witness). For some reason, when the Times posted the FBI reports on its web site, the paper itself covered up the "3500" reference on the documents.
The first mention of the existence of the purported "302s" came in filings Sabatino made late last year in a civil lawsuit against Combs. According to the convict, he received the explosive "302s" during "discovery, trial, and other proceedings" in a federal fraud prosecution brought against him in New York in August 2002. That case, though, never went to trial. Sabatino pleaded guilty to two felonies in August 2003 and was sentenced to more than 11 years in prison.
While he described the contents of four separate "302s" in his court papers, Sabatino attached only two of those reports to a November court motion. One of those documents was posted on the Times web site, along with another report that was referred to in Sabatino's filings, but not included as an exhibit. So, between Sabatino and the Times, three of the four purported FBI reports have been made public (those documents can be found here, here, and here). Details from the fourth supposed "302," dated July 1, 2002, are included in recent Sabatino court filings.
Notably, the convicted felon publicly filed the two "confidential" FBI records as exhibits to a motion seeking a court order barring Combs from distributing the documents to journalists. The bizarre motion surfaced six weeks after Sabatino filed his original October 4 complaint, which made no mention of "302s," Shakur, or any confidential FBI source. But that document does contain some of Sabatino's traditional flights from reality.
Along with claiming that he had been promised a "creative consultant" credit on Wallace's posthumous album "Born Again," Sabatino charged that Combs had delayed paying off his outstanding $175,000 debt because, in late-1998, "it was reported that the Los Angeles police had named [Sabatino] a 'person of interest' in the murder of Christopher Wallace," according to a December 6 court filing.
Of course, no news reports back this claim.
Sabatino then goes on to contend that this 1998 "theory" originates from an FBI "302" reporting that he was to meet Wallace on the night of his murder, "but never showed up." This purported "302," which Sabatino supposedly got in discovery, is further described by Sabatino in a court complaint: "The report goes on to say that prior to Mr. Wallace's murder [Sabatino] had contact with a 'close associate' of Marion 'Suge' Knight, a long time suspect in the murder of Mr. Wallace."
This story, not surprisingly, has a couple of structural deficiencies:
While the Sabatino-clipped-B.I.G. claim supposedly surfaced in 1998 when he was named a "person of interest," the "302" from which he says this "theory" originated would not be generated for another four years. Sometimes, when you're rewriting history on the fly, it's hard to maintain temporal continuity.
And then there's the small matter of Sabatino's whereabouts on March 9, 1997, when Wallace was gunned down while seated in a GMC Suburban outside the Peterson Automotive Museum in Los Angeles. While he enjoys repeating the "theory" that he mysteriously bailed on a planned meeting with the rapper that fateful night, Sabatino was actually 2400 miles away from the crime scene. He was imprisoned in Miami's Federal Detention Center, where he still had six months to serve on a two-year sentence for separate felony convictions.
It is not Bureau of Prisons policy to allow cross-country furloughs. Even to attend the Soul Train Music Awards.
In his lawsuit against Combs, Sabatino denied prior knowledge of the plot to ambush Shakur, but added that he "does not contest that he was present at Quad Studios" on the night of the shooting. However, in the reams of copy about the 1994 attack, Sabatino's name has never appeared anywhere. The first time a publication linked him to the Shakur ambush came last week in the Times, thanks to one of the FBI "302s" obtained by the country's fourth-largest newspaper.
The New York Police Department probe of the Quad Studios incident was headed by Detective Joseph Babnik, who worked robbery cases out of the Midtown North precinct. In an interview, Babnik, now retired, told TSG that Sabatino's name "does not ring a bell" and that he could not recall anyone with that surname being connected to the Shakur case. Asked if he would have recalled a rotund white teenager being present at Quad Studios that night, Babnik said yes, adding that the only white witnesses he recalled interviewing were employed in technical capacities at the recording studio.
Shakur, who never hesitated to point fingers at those he suspected of setting up the Quad Studios shooting, never once mentioned Sabatino's supposed role in the attack.
In a three-page "302" dated December 30, 2002, the FBI's supposed confidential source reported first meeting Shakur through Sabatino in late-1993. Sabatino, born October 24, 1976, would have been 16 or 17 at the time of the Shakur introduction. The source went on to report that in February 1994, the 17-year-old Sabatino was rebuffed by Shakur when the teenager spoke to the performer about a "business offer." In short order, Sabatino and an associate devised a plan to "set up" the disrespectful Shakur, whom they decided needed to be "dealt with."
This scenario, though preposterous on its face, was unblinkingly reported by the Times, which cited the FBI "302s" and sources who supported the account provided by the bureau's unnamed confidential source. And while the Times story noted that Sabatino "declined to comment," there can be little doubt that he was one of the unnamed sources confirming details found in the "302" reports (a nifty parlor trick by the maypole around which the Quad Studios story rotates).
But the most curious part of the Times story, however, involves the paper's reporting that it had learned the identity of the confidential source quoted in the "302s" and "verified that he was at the Quad on the night of the assault." The report continued, "When contacted, the man said the FBI records accurately convey what happened, and what he told investigators." The source, the Times added, spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The "302" purportedly describing the behind-the-scenes machinations leading up to Shakur's assault also includes a narrative flourish that somehow escaped prior investigative or journalistic excavation. As has been widely reported, after Shakur was shot in the lobby of the Seventh Avenue building, he stumbled into an elevator and headed upstairs. When the elevator doors opened on a floor where members of the Combs entourage were milling about, a bleeding Shakur exited. Sabatino, the FBI source claimed, responded by yelling, "Get that piece of shit out of here!" Though the agent who authored the report (you know, the one whose name was conveniently redacted) actually spelled the third word in that sentence "peice."
Coincidentally, an examination of Sabatino's court filings shows that he, too, has a pronounced difficulty spelling words with the i-e and e-i couplings. He and the unnamed FBI agent apparently never memorized the old "i before e except after c" mnemonic device.
Court records show that the teenage Sabatino was living with his father in Boynton Beach, Florida around the time of the November 1994 Shakur shooting. In fact, a 1999 profile ("Con Kid") of Sabatino in Miami New Times opens with a scene from early-November 1994 in Florida. Sabatino, then 18, is masquerading as a Sony Music executive and palling around backstage with Julio Iglesias at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts.
Another "302," which Sabatino included as a motion exhibit in his Combs lawsuit, quotes the FBI's confidential source as saying that they met Combs through Sabatino in late-1991. At the time, Sabatino would have been only 14 or 15. Amazingly, such precociousness on his part went unremarked upon (or unnoticed) by the entertainment press. And to think, just years earlier, music journalists were falling all over themselves to chronicle how Rick Rubin, a relative graybeard at 21, was co-founding Def Jam from his room at NYU's Weinstein dormitory.
In fact, according to a suspect December 30, 2002 FBI report, the confidential source said that Combs even enlisted Sabatino, 18 at the time, to serve as his envoy to "broker a 'peace agreement'" between Combs's firm, Bad Boy Entertainment, and Suge Knight's Death Row Records. Sabatino, apparently the James Baker of b-boys, was sent West because, the FBI source noted, Combs felt he "would hold a little influence over Knight due to Sabatino's father, Peter Sabatino, a/k/a Fat Pete, a member of the Colombo crime family and his relationship with a individual in Las Vegas (NFI)."
After meeting with Knight in California, Sabatino reportedly told the source that the "situation" was resolved, apparently due to the teenager's efforts. But when problems resurfaced later, "the source stated that Sabatino told him that it was all Combs fault and that Combs did not do what he said he would." Here, the negligent FBI agent authoring the report made the mistake of identifying the confidential source's gender through the careless use of the pronoun "him," thus narrowing the field of informant possibilities by half.
As for the claim that Sabatino's father was (or is) a gangster, that is directly contradicted by NYPD and FBI lists of Colombo family members, other FBI documents obtained by TSG, and law enforcement personnel interviewed for this story. The elder Sabatino has worked as the manager of a Florida restaurant. It was his son who gave him his button.
[Since the early-90s, a series of high-ranking Colombo crime family members and associates have defected and began cooperating with federal agents. TSG has in excess of 750 pages of FBI reports of its debriefings with nine of these turncoats. Nowhere in these documents is Sabatino or his father mentioned. A typical report--yes, on an authentic "302" with a government exhibit sticker--can be found here. It records an interview with former consigliere Carmine Sessa, who identifies all the family's captains and the soldiers in their respective crews.]
In November 2003, when Sabatino appeared for sentencing in federal court in White Plains, N.Y., his attorney, Mary Anne Wirth, stressed to Judge Charles Brieant that reports that the Sabatinos were somehow tied to organized crime were "utterly untrue." James, the lawyer added, went to great lengths to dispel this wiseguy myth for his probation officer.
While hip-hop chroniclers have never recorded Sabatino's 1995 shuttle diplomacy on Combs's behalf, The New York Times Magazine did report in January 1996 that Combs sent Mustafa Farrakhan to speak with Knight (who refused to meet with the Bad Boy agent). Perhaps Death Row's boss just preferred negotiating with a 5' 5", 220-pound Italian-American kid rather than Nation of Islam head Louis Farrakhan's son.
In court papers, Sabatino has claimed that he originally shared the FBI "302s" with Combs after receiving them during discovery, but extracted a promise that the documents would not be distributed further.
He gave Combs the records, Sabatino explained, because the FBI's confidential source provided agents with details about the music industry power and Bad Boy Entertainment. This was a particularly magnanimous gesture on the imprisoned Sabatino's part since his own lawsuit claims that Combs has owed him $175,000 since 1998.
But instead of keeping the "302s" under wraps, Sabatino charged, Combs recently provided them to a "so called 'investigative reporter'" and a businessman with whom Sabatino was negotiating a lucrative deal. According to Sabatino's curious reasoning, Combs gave the FBI documents to the journalist (presumably Philips) in a bid to focus the reporter's attention away from him and onto Sabatino when it came to exposing criminal conduct on the pair's part. And Combs supposedly delivered the documents to the businessman to torpedo Sabatino's pending $100,000 consulting contract.
The Times reported that Sabatino told Combs and Wallace beforehand about the plot to ambush Shakur at Quad Studios, and that talent manager Jimmy Rosemond, working with Sabatino, was an architect of the assault. Shakur was shot several times during the 1994 attack and was robbed of his jewelry, which reportedly included a $40,000 gold medallion. After the Times story was published, Combs and Rosemond issued statements attacking the paper's reporting and vehemently denied orchestrating the attack on Shakur or knowing about it ahead of time.
It appears that the real purpose of the suspect "302s" is to portray Sabatino as a feared hip-hop figure who muscled and conned rappers into deals. The entertainers were drawn to him "because he is a member of La Cosa Nostra" and such Mafia ties were "glamorized in the Hip Hop world," reported the confidential source. The documents Sabatino supposedly did not want disseminated--but which he himself filed publicly--conferred upon him the kind of rap world status that he has long coveted.
Sabatino has frequently claimed to have managed a number of leading hip-hop acts, including Notorious B.I.G., Lords of the Underground, and Heavy D and the Boyz. Du Kelly, a member of Lords of the Underground, described Sabatino as a "scam artist" who briefly tried to befriend the group's manager. Kelly said that he recalled Sabatino as a "short, Caucasian, little chubby fat guy" whose "father was supposed to be Mafia or something." Sabatino was "just a con artist who tried to get close to artists, but he was a nobody," said Kelly. He added that Sabatino also tried to get near the Wu-Tang Clan, "but I heard they beat him up."
Sabatino's convoluted and bizarre motion to gag Combs, of course, was immediately denied. Judge Stephen T. Brown ruled that the federal inmate's request was moot since the "allegedly confidential documents...are attached to this motion as exhibits." While the prodigious jailhouse litigant surely expected this defeat, he succeeded in drawing attention to the Combs lawsuit, the "302s," and, of course, himself.
But unlike Sabatino's own prior outlandish and unsupported claims about his entertainment industry resume (he once said he regularly consulted with music industry legend Clive Davis and even co-produced Combs's 1997 album "No Way Out"), the information about him in the "302s" came with the shiny imprimatur of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and its valuable confidential source, who, the documents noted, "is in a position to testify."
And now The Los Angeles Times has added to the myth, describing "promoter James Sabatino" as a Tupac Shakur antagonist who toured with The Notorious B.I.G. and "became a fixture in Combs's circle...helping him stage lavish parties and land corporate sponsorships."
*****
While Sabatino's "302" gambit might seem inexplicable, especially for someone already in prison (he has a November 2012 release date), it appears fairly typical for a man who has spent most of his adult life behind bars and appears to have little impulse control.
His adult rap sheet includes more that a dozen convictions, beginning with a 1994 credit card collar in Virginia when he was 17. Back then, Sabatino was arrested for using an American Express card issued to Coca-Cola. He quickly became adept at assuming the identities of others as he swindled all kinds of goods from marks he either sweet-talked or duped with forged documents. And he was frequently arrested.
Alternately posing as an executive with companies like Blockbuster, Paramount Pictures, Sony Music, Warner Bros., Viacom, and the Miami Dolphins, Sabatino conned dozens of firms out of an assortment of merchandise, including computers, pagers, phones, hotel accommodations, limousine rides, and even 262 tickets to the January 1995 Super Bowl. He regularly passed bad checks and skipped out on bills. The football ticket theft prompted one police official to remark, "This kid is a scammer. He is a smooth talker and can talk you out of your clothes before you even realize it."
In an October 2003 letter to a federal judge preparing to sentence his son on fraud and identity theft counts, Peter Sabatino recalled that James was a successful child model whose mother, an unknown B-movie actress, "projected all of her dreams of fame and fortune onto her son." When James was 11, Peter wrote, the boy's mother left home, never to come back. "Shortly thereafter, I received a call from James' teacher that James had told her his mother had died in a car accident. Obviously this wasn't true but was his way of resolving the matter in his head and his heart."
From that point, James's behavior spiraled out of control and he was "expelled from twelve different schools, parochial, private and finally public." At one point he even spent 30 days in a psychiatric facility. The only thing that calmed James, his father wrote, was long hours in front of the television, where the boy would "anxiously wait for the credits and write down the names of producers, directors and others that he felt were influential in the production. He then began to assume what he perceived was the persona of these individuals." Soon, James realized that, "by calling restaurants, hotels, theatres, and other businesses using their names he could go anywhere he desired," Peter stated.
"However, these situations usually ended with me receiving a call to go to wherever he was and pay whatever bill he had run up or they would have him arrested. Like any loving father, I would come to his rescue. Eventually, the calls stopped."
In late-1997, after finishing a two-year state sentence in Florida, Sabatino was arrested in New York City for defrauding the Marriott Marquis hotel. While on bail, he traveled to London and got arrested again, this time for ripping off the Four Seasons hotel. Sabatino, then 22, had been a free man for all of four months when he was jailed in a Brixton prison. He has been in custody ever since.
Apparently believing that he could not last six months in the harsh English prison, Sabatino hatched a plot to speed his return to America. From a prison phone, he began calling the U.S. to make death threats against President Bill Clinton and various federal prosecutors, judges, and agents. He even threatened to blow up the federal courthouse in Ft. Lauderdale. The harebrained scheme, of course, backfired. After serving his entire Brixton prison term, Sabatino was arrested for the various phone threats.
He was returned to Florida, where he immediately assaulted a federal prison guard and, as a result, was hit with a new felony indictment. Sabatino would subsequently receive a 51-month prison sentence covering those two cases. Internal BoP records show that Sabatino has been a remarkably unruly inmate, having been disciplined on about 30 occasions through May 2007. He has often been punished for refusing to obey orders, interfering with security devices, threatening bodily harm, assault, and weapons possession. During one fight, Sabatino stabbed another inmate with a sharpened piece of metal. The dispute, the victim told authorities, occurred when Sabatino refused to pay off a winning numbers ticket.
In August 2002, with Sabatino months away from being freed, Secret Service agents raided his cell at the Westchester County jail in Valhalla, N.Y.. Investigators carted away evidence showing that he had spent the prior six months using jail phones to defraud Nextel out of more than 1000 cell phones. Sabatino worked with a raggedy group of accomplices--most of whom he never met--and defrauded firms of upwards of $1 million. According to investigators, Sabatino, posing as different entertainment executives, called around the country and arranged to have large cell phone shipments delivered to his footmen.
His cut was less than $8000, which was placed into his commissary account by a stripper/coconspirator named Marcy who visited him in jail and claimed to be his wife. On his cell walls Sabatino kept photos of his criminal cohorts and their children. Stacked elsewhere in the cell were his collections of Playboy and Maxim, assorted legal filings (for both his cases and matters for which he was not a party), forged memos on the letterhead of businesses ensnared in his phone scam, and a signed, but otherwise blank, federal court subpoena.
Sabatino pleaded guilty in August 2003 to felony fraud and identity theft charges. Addressing the court before his sentencing, Sabatino apologized for the illegal scheme and said, "I know this may sound strange, but there is a part of me that just does these type of things and I can't control it. It's like a fight within myself sometime...I have been battling this demon for a very long time." He added, "I really had only one motivation for this crime, to make attention to myself and to make other people happy and for me to be the cause of that happiness."
Presciently, Judge Brieant then remarked that Sabatino was an adult who "seems to have acted...out of a need for attention." He added, "I have real concern about whether this need for attention will ever go away and therefore the impulse to commit these sorts of crimes."
*****
As Sabatino has recently sought to place himself in the limelight via his tall rap tales, he appears to be receiving assistance from beyond Allenwood's walls. When he filed his legal action against Combs, an Associated Press report identified one "Renee Morrison" as the spokesperson for Sabatino's "Florida-based company, Sound Storm Entertainment."
According to a January letter from an Allenwood unit manager, Sabatino regularly gets in excess of $2000 deposited into his commissary account, a "sizable amount" for a federal inmate. But despite being flush, he files grievances when BoP officials seek to increase the $25 monthly he must pay toward financial penalties levied from his most recent conviction.
Last year, he even launched a MySpace page, which is apparently run by "Rene Morrison," who responded to an e-mail sent last week by a TSG reporter. On his page, Sabatino writes about a new female singer, Timarie, for whom he is trying to secure a "leading major recording deal." He also provides some fantastical new biographical details, including the claim that he worked as a "rodie" on a New Kids on the Block world tour (he would have been about 15). Oh, and he "befriended Mark Wahlberg and went on to help cultivate his rap career."
And just in case his lawsuit against Combs, the phony FBI "302s," or last week's Los Angeles Times story left any doubt, Sabatino is once again looking for a little attention. The headline on his MySpace page makes that clear:
"Back In Action," it announces.
Big Phat Liar
How a federal inmate duped the Los Angeles Times, fabricated FBI reports, and linked Sean "Diddy" Combs to 1994 ambush of Tupac Shakur
MARCH 26--Last week's bombshell Los Angeles Times report claiming that the 1994 shooting of Tupac Shakur in the lobby of a Manhattan recording studio was carried out by associates of Sean "Diddy" Combs and that the rap impresario knew of the plot beforehand was based largely on fabricated FBI reports, The Smoking Gun has learned.
The Times appears to have been hoaxed by an imprisoned con man and accomplished document forger, an audacious swindler who has created a fantasy world in which he managed hip-hop luminaries, conducted business with Combs, Shakur, Busta Rhymes, and The Notorious B.I.G., and even served as Combs's trusted emissary to Death Row Records boss Marion "Suge" Knight during the outset of hostilities in the bloody East Coast-West Coast rap feud.
The con man, James Sabatino, 31, has long sought to insinuate himself, after the fact, in a series of important hip-hop events, from Shakur's shooting to the murder of The Notorious B.I.G.. In fact, however, Sabatino was little more than a rap devotee, a wildly impulsive, overweight white kid from Florida whose own father once described him in a letter to a federal judge as "a disturbed young man who needed attention like a drug." Sabatino is pictured in the above mug shot.
The Times story, which was first posted online March 17 and then appeared in the newspaper itself last Wednesday, relied on "FBI records recently obtained by The Times" and interviews with several unnamed sources in its reexamination of the November 30, 1994 shooting of Shakur at Quad Studios near Times Square. Included in the paper's online package was a PDF of two key FBI interview reports cited in the 2800-word story, which was six months in the making and written by veteran reporter Chuck Philips, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1999 for his coverage of corruption in the entertainment industry.
In addition to the documents posted on the Times site, a third purported FBI interview report was included by Sabatino in court papers he filed four months ago in U.S. District Court in Miami. In that civil case, Sabatino is suing Combs for $16 million over an alleged soured business deal from nearly a decade ago. According to Sabatino's complaint, which he prepared and filed himself from the Allenwood federal penitentiary in White Deer, Pennsylvania, Combs stiffed him on a $175,000 payment for audio and video recordings Sabatino made in 1994 of The Notorious B.I.G. (real name: Christopher Wallace).
But those FBI reports, dubbed "302s" due to the numbered government form on which they are prepared, are nowhere to be found in the bureau's computerized Automated Case Support database, TSG has learned. The ACS system allows investigators to search various bureau indices to determine whether particular individuals, groups, or topics have been referred to in FBI "302" reports or various other bureau documents.
The suspect documents contain information supposedly provided to agents in the FBI's New York office by an unnamed "confidential source." The records, which Sabatino himself has distributed, conveniently contain black redaction marks covering up the name of the agent (or agents) who prepared the "302s" as well as the corresponding FBI case number. However, since the documents are filled with the names of individuals and corporations, they can be tracked within the FBI system by working backwards (by subjects as opposed to case number or agent name).
And while Sabatino claims to have been provided the FBI reports during the discovery phase of a 2002 criminal case, a federal law enforcement official involved in that successful prosecution told TSG that the probe was headed by Secret Service representatives and that the FBI had no role whatsoever in the case. The official added that, at the time, investigators "had no inkling" of Sabatino's supposed role in the rap music world and never saw investigative reports detailing his purported involvement with hip-hop's leading figures or its assorted bloody disputes.
Additionally, an examination of the three documents revealed that the bodies of the respective "302s" were actually created on a typewriter (the "frame" of the reports is consistent with an authentic "302" template). In some instances, you can see where one letter was typed on top of an existing character, a so-called overstrike. In an interview, Bruce Mouw, a former FBI supervisor who headed the bureau's pursuit of John Gotti, estimated that agents ceased using typewriters about 30 years ago.
Riddled with spelling and grammatical errors, the purported "302" documents vary sharply from standard FBI reports in terms of phraseology and use of certain acronyms, according to several law enforcement sources who examined the documents at TSG's request.
For example, the reports contain the acronyms "TNU," which apparently is short for "true name unknown," and "NFI," short for "no further information." Two ex-FBI agents said that they had never seen those acronyms in bureau reports. Both men also alerted to how the reports were dated, with month, day, and year set off with periods, instead of the customary slashes.
Most telling, though, are the obvious similarities (type size, font, line spacing, individual character renderings) between the purported "302s" and certain court filings created by Sabatino while he has been incarcerated at Allenwood (he was transferred last May from a Florida prison to the high-security penitentiary in the foothills of the Allegheny Mountains). As with all other Bureau of Prisons (BoP) facilities, Allenwood provides inmates with access to photocopying machines, office supplies, and typewriters, according to the BoP's 2008 Legal Resource Guide. Inmates, the guide states, are "permitted a reasonable amount of time...to conduct their own legal research and to prepare legal documents."
A comparison of the "302s" and Sabatino's own court filings shows that the authors of each set of documents share remarkably similar spelling deficiencies. For instance, the word "making" appears as "makeing" in both the "302s" and Sabatino's pro se court pleadings. Similarly, the authors also have difficulty with the word "during." It appears as "durring" in both sets of documents.
While a federal judge once referred to Sabatino as "articulate" and "an extraordinarily intelligent man," spelling and grammar are not strong suits for the ninth-grade dropout. And typewriters, of course, do not offer spell check.
After a reporter provided Philips and Marc Duvoisin, the deputy managing editor who edited the Times story, an account of TSG's findings, Duvoisin said that the newspaper would launch its own investigation to determine if the FBI documents cited in its story are real.
In response to a TSG interview request, Sabatino wrote a March 20 letter stating that "there is a lot of lies cirulating arround right now. But this is all going to backfire on Puff. I know him too well." As a result of the Times story, Sabatino wrote that he has been "receiving letters from all over the country. Reporters and regular people alike." While he offered to call a reporter and talk "off-the-record," Sabatino had not been heard from at press time.
The "302s" in question also carry redaction marks on a "government exhibit" sticker seen in the upper right corner of the opening pages of the three FBI reports. On the documents filed by Sabatino in his lawsuit against Combs, the number "3500" remains visible on the stickers, indicating that the material was turned over during the discovery phase of a criminal trial ("3500" refers to the section of the United States Code which entitles a defendant to receive prosecution records that could be used to impeach a trial witness). For some reason, when the Times posted the FBI reports on its web site, the paper itself covered up the "3500" reference on the documents.
The first mention of the existence of the purported "302s" came in filings Sabatino made late last year in a civil lawsuit against Combs. According to the convict, he received the explosive "302s" during "discovery, trial, and other proceedings" in a federal fraud prosecution brought against him in New York in August 2002. That case, though, never went to trial. Sabatino pleaded guilty to two felonies in August 2003 and was sentenced to more than 11 years in prison.
While he described the contents of four separate "302s" in his court papers, Sabatino attached only two of those reports to a November court motion. One of those documents was posted on the Times web site, along with another report that was referred to in Sabatino's filings, but not included as an exhibit. So, between Sabatino and the Times, three of the four purported FBI reports have been made public (those documents can be found here, here, and here). Details from the fourth supposed "302," dated July 1, 2002, are included in recent Sabatino court filings.
Notably, the convicted felon publicly filed the two "confidential" FBI records as exhibits to a motion seeking a court order barring Combs from distributing the documents to journalists. The bizarre motion surfaced six weeks after Sabatino filed his original October 4 complaint, which made no mention of "302s," Shakur, or any confidential FBI source. But that document does contain some of Sabatino's traditional flights from reality.
Along with claiming that he had been promised a "creative consultant" credit on Wallace's posthumous album "Born Again," Sabatino charged that Combs had delayed paying off his outstanding $175,000 debt because, in late-1998, "it was reported that the Los Angeles police had named [Sabatino] a 'person of interest' in the murder of Christopher Wallace," according to a December 6 court filing.
Of course, no news reports back this claim.
Sabatino then goes on to contend that this 1998 "theory" originates from an FBI "302" reporting that he was to meet Wallace on the night of his murder, "but never showed up." This purported "302," which Sabatino supposedly got in discovery, is further described by Sabatino in a court complaint: "The report goes on to say that prior to Mr. Wallace's murder [Sabatino] had contact with a 'close associate' of Marion 'Suge' Knight, a long time suspect in the murder of Mr. Wallace."
This story, not surprisingly, has a couple of structural deficiencies:
While the Sabatino-clipped-B.I.G. claim supposedly surfaced in 1998 when he was named a "person of interest," the "302" from which he says this "theory" originated would not be generated for another four years. Sometimes, when you're rewriting history on the fly, it's hard to maintain temporal continuity.
And then there's the small matter of Sabatino's whereabouts on March 9, 1997, when Wallace was gunned down while seated in a GMC Suburban outside the Peterson Automotive Museum in Los Angeles. While he enjoys repeating the "theory" that he mysteriously bailed on a planned meeting with the rapper that fateful night, Sabatino was actually 2400 miles away from the crime scene. He was imprisoned in Miami's Federal Detention Center, where he still had six months to serve on a two-year sentence for separate felony convictions.
It is not Bureau of Prisons policy to allow cross-country furloughs. Even to attend the Soul Train Music Awards.
In his lawsuit against Combs, Sabatino denied prior knowledge of the plot to ambush Shakur, but added that he "does not contest that he was present at Quad Studios" on the night of the shooting. However, in the reams of copy about the 1994 attack, Sabatino's name has never appeared anywhere. The first time a publication linked him to the Shakur ambush came last week in the Times, thanks to one of the FBI "302s" obtained by the country's fourth-largest newspaper.
The New York Police Department probe of the Quad Studios incident was headed by Detective Joseph Babnik, who worked robbery cases out of the Midtown North precinct. In an interview, Babnik, now retired, told TSG that Sabatino's name "does not ring a bell" and that he could not recall anyone with that surname being connected to the Shakur case. Asked if he would have recalled a rotund white teenager being present at Quad Studios that night, Babnik said yes, adding that the only white witnesses he recalled interviewing were employed in technical capacities at the recording studio.
Shakur, who never hesitated to point fingers at those he suspected of setting up the Quad Studios shooting, never once mentioned Sabatino's supposed role in the attack.
In a three-page "302" dated December 30, 2002, the FBI's supposed confidential source reported first meeting Shakur through Sabatino in late-1993. Sabatino, born October 24, 1976, would have been 16 or 17 at the time of the Shakur introduction. The source went on to report that in February 1994, the 17-year-old Sabatino was rebuffed by Shakur when the teenager spoke to the performer about a "business offer." In short order, Sabatino and an associate devised a plan to "set up" the disrespectful Shakur, whom they decided needed to be "dealt with."
This scenario, though preposterous on its face, was unblinkingly reported by the Times, which cited the FBI "302s" and sources who supported the account provided by the bureau's unnamed confidential source. And while the Times story noted that Sabatino "declined to comment," there can be little doubt that he was one of the unnamed sources confirming details found in the "302" reports (a nifty parlor trick by the maypole around which the Quad Studios story rotates).
But the most curious part of the Times story, however, involves the paper's reporting that it had learned the identity of the confidential source quoted in the "302s" and "verified that he was at the Quad on the night of the assault." The report continued, "When contacted, the man said the FBI records accurately convey what happened, and what he told investigators." The source, the Times added, spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The "302" purportedly describing the behind-the-scenes machinations leading up to Shakur's assault also includes a narrative flourish that somehow escaped prior investigative or journalistic excavation. As has been widely reported, after Shakur was shot in the lobby of the Seventh Avenue building, he stumbled into an elevator and headed upstairs. When the elevator doors opened on a floor where members of the Combs entourage were milling about, a bleeding Shakur exited. Sabatino, the FBI source claimed, responded by yelling, "Get that piece of shit out of here!" Though the agent who authored the report (you know, the one whose name was conveniently redacted) actually spelled the third word in that sentence "peice."
Coincidentally, an examination of Sabatino's court filings shows that he, too, has a pronounced difficulty spelling words with the i-e and e-i couplings. He and the unnamed FBI agent apparently never memorized the old "i before e except after c" mnemonic device.
Court records show that the teenage Sabatino was living with his father in Boynton Beach, Florida around the time of the November 1994 Shakur shooting. In fact, a 1999 profile ("Con Kid") of Sabatino in Miami New Times opens with a scene from early-November 1994 in Florida. Sabatino, then 18, is masquerading as a Sony Music executive and palling around backstage with Julio Iglesias at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts.
Another "302," which Sabatino included as a motion exhibit in his Combs lawsuit, quotes the FBI's confidential source as saying that they met Combs through Sabatino in late-1991. At the time, Sabatino would have been only 14 or 15. Amazingly, such precociousness on his part went unremarked upon (or unnoticed) by the entertainment press. And to think, just years earlier, music journalists were falling all over themselves to chronicle how Rick Rubin, a relative graybeard at 21, was co-founding Def Jam from his room at NYU's Weinstein dormitory.
In fact, according to a suspect December 30, 2002 FBI report, the confidential source said that Combs even enlisted Sabatino, 18 at the time, to serve as his envoy to "broker a 'peace agreement'" between Combs's firm, Bad Boy Entertainment, and Suge Knight's Death Row Records. Sabatino, apparently the James Baker of b-boys, was sent West because, the FBI source noted, Combs felt he "would hold a little influence over Knight due to Sabatino's father, Peter Sabatino, a/k/a Fat Pete, a member of the Colombo crime family and his relationship with a individual in Las Vegas (NFI)."
After meeting with Knight in California, Sabatino reportedly told the source that the "situation" was resolved, apparently due to the teenager's efforts. But when problems resurfaced later, "the source stated that Sabatino told him that it was all Combs fault and that Combs did not do what he said he would." Here, the negligent FBI agent authoring the report made the mistake of identifying the confidential source's gender through the careless use of the pronoun "him," thus narrowing the field of informant possibilities by half.
As for the claim that Sabatino's father was (or is) a gangster, that is directly contradicted by NYPD and FBI lists of Colombo family members, other FBI documents obtained by TSG, and law enforcement personnel interviewed for this story. The elder Sabatino has worked as the manager of a Florida restaurant. It was his son who gave him his button.
[Since the early-90s, a series of high-ranking Colombo crime family members and associates have defected and began cooperating with federal agents. TSG has in excess of 750 pages of FBI reports of its debriefings with nine of these turncoats. Nowhere in these documents is Sabatino or his father mentioned. A typical report--yes, on an authentic "302" with a government exhibit sticker--can be found here. It records an interview with former consigliere Carmine Sessa, who identifies all the family's captains and the soldiers in their respective crews.]
In November 2003, when Sabatino appeared for sentencing in federal court in White Plains, N.Y., his attorney, Mary Anne Wirth, stressed to Judge Charles Brieant that reports that the Sabatinos were somehow tied to organized crime were "utterly untrue." James, the lawyer added, went to great lengths to dispel this wiseguy myth for his probation officer.
While hip-hop chroniclers have never recorded Sabatino's 1995 shuttle diplomacy on Combs's behalf, The New York Times Magazine did report in January 1996 that Combs sent Mustafa Farrakhan to speak with Knight (who refused to meet with the Bad Boy agent). Perhaps Death Row's boss just preferred negotiating with a 5' 5", 220-pound Italian-American kid rather than Nation of Islam head Louis Farrakhan's son.
In court papers, Sabatino has claimed that he originally shared the FBI "302s" with Combs after receiving them during discovery, but extracted a promise that the documents would not be distributed further.
He gave Combs the records, Sabatino explained, because the FBI's confidential source provided agents with details about the music industry power and Bad Boy Entertainment. This was a particularly magnanimous gesture on the imprisoned Sabatino's part since his own lawsuit claims that Combs has owed him $175,000 since 1998.
But instead of keeping the "302s" under wraps, Sabatino charged, Combs recently provided them to a "so called 'investigative reporter'" and a businessman with whom Sabatino was negotiating a lucrative deal. According to Sabatino's curious reasoning, Combs gave the FBI documents to the journalist (presumably Philips) in a bid to focus the reporter's attention away from him and onto Sabatino when it came to exposing criminal conduct on the pair's part. And Combs supposedly delivered the documents to the businessman to torpedo Sabatino's pending $100,000 consulting contract.
The Times reported that Sabatino told Combs and Wallace beforehand about the plot to ambush Shakur at Quad Studios, and that talent manager Jimmy Rosemond, working with Sabatino, was an architect of the assault. Shakur was shot several times during the 1994 attack and was robbed of his jewelry, which reportedly included a $40,000 gold medallion. After the Times story was published, Combs and Rosemond issued statements attacking the paper's reporting and vehemently denied orchestrating the attack on Shakur or knowing about it ahead of time.
It appears that the real purpose of the suspect "302s" is to portray Sabatino as a feared hip-hop figure who muscled and conned rappers into deals. The entertainers were drawn to him "because he is a member of La Cosa Nostra" and such Mafia ties were "glamorized in the Hip Hop world," reported the confidential source. The documents Sabatino supposedly did not want disseminated--but which he himself filed publicly--conferred upon him the kind of rap world status that he has long coveted.
Sabatino has frequently claimed to have managed a number of leading hip-hop acts, including Notorious B.I.G., Lords of the Underground, and Heavy D and the Boyz. Du Kelly, a member of Lords of the Underground, described Sabatino as a "scam artist" who briefly tried to befriend the group's manager. Kelly said that he recalled Sabatino as a "short, Caucasian, little chubby fat guy" whose "father was supposed to be Mafia or something." Sabatino was "just a con artist who tried to get close to artists, but he was a nobody," said Kelly. He added that Sabatino also tried to get near the Wu-Tang Clan, "but I heard they beat him up."
Sabatino's convoluted and bizarre motion to gag Combs, of course, was immediately denied. Judge Stephen T. Brown ruled that the federal inmate's request was moot since the "allegedly confidential documents...are attached to this motion as exhibits." While the prodigious jailhouse litigant surely expected this defeat, he succeeded in drawing attention to the Combs lawsuit, the "302s," and, of course, himself.
But unlike Sabatino's own prior outlandish and unsupported claims about his entertainment industry resume (he once said he regularly consulted with music industry legend Clive Davis and even co-produced Combs's 1997 album "No Way Out"), the information about him in the "302s" came with the shiny imprimatur of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and its valuable confidential source, who, the documents noted, "is in a position to testify."
And now The Los Angeles Times has added to the myth, describing "promoter James Sabatino" as a Tupac Shakur antagonist who toured with The Notorious B.I.G. and "became a fixture in Combs's circle...helping him stage lavish parties and land corporate sponsorships."
*****
While Sabatino's "302" gambit might seem inexplicable, especially for someone already in prison (he has a November 2012 release date), it appears fairly typical for a man who has spent most of his adult life behind bars and appears to have little impulse control.
His adult rap sheet includes more that a dozen convictions, beginning with a 1994 credit card collar in Virginia when he was 17. Back then, Sabatino was arrested for using an American Express card issued to Coca-Cola. He quickly became adept at assuming the identities of others as he swindled all kinds of goods from marks he either sweet-talked or duped with forged documents. And he was frequently arrested.
Alternately posing as an executive with companies like Blockbuster, Paramount Pictures, Sony Music, Warner Bros., Viacom, and the Miami Dolphins, Sabatino conned dozens of firms out of an assortment of merchandise, including computers, pagers, phones, hotel accommodations, limousine rides, and even 262 tickets to the January 1995 Super Bowl. He regularly passed bad checks and skipped out on bills. The football ticket theft prompted one police official to remark, "This kid is a scammer. He is a smooth talker and can talk you out of your clothes before you even realize it."
In an October 2003 letter to a federal judge preparing to sentence his son on fraud and identity theft counts, Peter Sabatino recalled that James was a successful child model whose mother, an unknown B-movie actress, "projected all of her dreams of fame and fortune onto her son." When James was 11, Peter wrote, the boy's mother left home, never to come back. "Shortly thereafter, I received a call from James' teacher that James had told her his mother had died in a car accident. Obviously this wasn't true but was his way of resolving the matter in his head and his heart."
From that point, James's behavior spiraled out of control and he was "expelled from twelve different schools, parochial, private and finally public." At one point he even spent 30 days in a psychiatric facility. The only thing that calmed James, his father wrote, was long hours in front of the television, where the boy would "anxiously wait for the credits and write down the names of producers, directors and others that he felt were influential in the production. He then began to assume what he perceived was the persona of these individuals." Soon, James realized that, "by calling restaurants, hotels, theatres, and other businesses using their names he could go anywhere he desired," Peter stated.
"However, these situations usually ended with me receiving a call to go to wherever he was and pay whatever bill he had run up or they would have him arrested. Like any loving father, I would come to his rescue. Eventually, the calls stopped."
In late-1997, after finishing a two-year state sentence in Florida, Sabatino was arrested in New York City for defrauding the Marriott Marquis hotel. While on bail, he traveled to London and got arrested again, this time for ripping off the Four Seasons hotel. Sabatino, then 22, had been a free man for all of four months when he was jailed in a Brixton prison. He has been in custody ever since.
Apparently believing that he could not last six months in the harsh English prison, Sabatino hatched a plot to speed his return to America. From a prison phone, he began calling the U.S. to make death threats against President Bill Clinton and various federal prosecutors, judges, and agents. He even threatened to blow up the federal courthouse in Ft. Lauderdale. The harebrained scheme, of course, backfired. After serving his entire Brixton prison term, Sabatino was arrested for the various phone threats.
He was returned to Florida, where he immediately assaulted a federal prison guard and, as a result, was hit with a new felony indictment. Sabatino would subsequently receive a 51-month prison sentence covering those two cases. Internal BoP records show that Sabatino has been a remarkably unruly inmate, having been disciplined on about 30 occasions through May 2007. He has often been punished for refusing to obey orders, interfering with security devices, threatening bodily harm, assault, and weapons possession. During one fight, Sabatino stabbed another inmate with a sharpened piece of metal. The dispute, the victim told authorities, occurred when Sabatino refused to pay off a winning numbers ticket.
In August 2002, with Sabatino months away from being freed, Secret Service agents raided his cell at the Westchester County jail in Valhalla, N.Y.. Investigators carted away evidence showing that he had spent the prior six months using jail phones to defraud Nextel out of more than 1000 cell phones. Sabatino worked with a raggedy group of accomplices--most of whom he never met--and defrauded firms of upwards of $1 million. According to investigators, Sabatino, posing as different entertainment executives, called around the country and arranged to have large cell phone shipments delivered to his footmen.
His cut was less than $8000, which was placed into his commissary account by a stripper/coconspirator named Marcy who visited him in jail and claimed to be his wife. On his cell walls Sabatino kept photos of his criminal cohorts and their children. Stacked elsewhere in the cell were his collections of Playboy and Maxim, assorted legal filings (for both his cases and matters for which he was not a party), forged memos on the letterhead of businesses ensnared in his phone scam, and a signed, but otherwise blank, federal court subpoena.
Sabatino pleaded guilty in August 2003 to felony fraud and identity theft charges. Addressing the court before his sentencing, Sabatino apologized for the illegal scheme and said, "I know this may sound strange, but there is a part of me that just does these type of things and I can't control it. It's like a fight within myself sometime...I have been battling this demon for a very long time." He added, "I really had only one motivation for this crime, to make attention to myself and to make other people happy and for me to be the cause of that happiness."
Presciently, Judge Brieant then remarked that Sabatino was an adult who "seems to have acted...out of a need for attention." He added, "I have real concern about whether this need for attention will ever go away and therefore the impulse to commit these sorts of crimes."
*****
As Sabatino has recently sought to place himself in the limelight via his tall rap tales, he appears to be receiving assistance from beyond Allenwood's walls. When he filed his legal action against Combs, an Associated Press report identified one "Renee Morrison" as the spokesperson for Sabatino's "Florida-based company, Sound Storm Entertainment."
According to a January letter from an Allenwood unit manager, Sabatino regularly gets in excess of $2000 deposited into his commissary account, a "sizable amount" for a federal inmate. But despite being flush, he files grievances when BoP officials seek to increase the $25 monthly he must pay toward financial penalties levied from his most recent conviction.
Last year, he even launched a MySpace page, which is apparently run by "Rene Morrison," who responded to an e-mail sent last week by a TSG reporter. On his page, Sabatino writes about a new female singer, Timarie, for whom he is trying to secure a "leading major recording deal." He also provides some fantastical new biographical details, including the claim that he worked as a "rodie" on a New Kids on the Block world tour (he would have been about 15). Oh, and he "befriended Mark Wahlberg and went on to help cultivate his rap career."
And just in case his lawsuit against Combs, the phony FBI "302s," or last week's Los Angeles Times story left any doubt, Sabatino is once again looking for a little attention. The headline on his MySpace page makes that clear:
"Back In Action," it announces.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Diddy Calls Accusations 'Beyond Ridiculous'
http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1583505/20080317/puff_daddy.jhtml
Mar 17 2008
Diddy Calls L.A. Times' Accusations About Tupac Assault 'Beyond Ridiculous'
Jimmy Rosemond, in separate statement, calls article 'garbage.'
By Jayson Rodriguez
Sean "Diddy" Combs and Jimmy "Henchman" Rosemond both responded quickly to allegations made in a Los Angeles Times article by reporter Chuck Philips that the pair, along with the Notorious B.I.G. and a New York promoter, knew in advance that Tupac Shakur would be assaulted at New York's Quad Recording Studios on November 30, 1994.
"This story is beyond ridiculous and is completely false," Diddy said in a statement released Monday (March 17). "Neither Biggie nor I had any knowledge of any attack before, during or after it happened. It is a complete lie to suggest that there was any involvement by Biggie or myself. I am shocked that the Los Angeles Times would be so irresponsible as to publish such a baseless and completely untrue story."
In a separate statement, Rosemond vehemently attacked the credibility of Philips, the article's author. Rosemond, who currently serves as the Game's manager, noted that he has never been questioned by police regarding the incident and criticized Philips' previous work, particularly the writer's suggestion that Biggie was present in Las Vegas the night Shakur was murdered and supplied the killer with the weapon. Rosemond also echoed Diddy's concern that the Times would print such a report.
"In the past 14 years, I have not even been questioned by law enforcement with regard to the assault of Tupac Shakur, let alone brought up on charges," Rosemond said in a statement provided to MTV News. "Chuck Philips, the writer who in the past has falsely claimed that [Christopher "Notorious B.I.G." Wallace] was in Las Vegas when Tupac was murdered and that Biggie supplied the gun that killed Tupac — only to be proven wrong, as Biggie was in New Jersey recuperating from a car accident. [The Times] has reached a new low by employing fourth-hand information from desperate jailhouse informants along with ancient FBI reports to create this fabrication.
"I simply ask for all rap fans and fans of Tupac to analyze this fiction for what it is, along with Phillips' motives behind it," the statement continued. "I am baffled as to why the Times would print this on its Web site, when a simple and fair investigation would reveal that the allegations are false. I am currently consulting with my attorneys about my legal rights regarding this libelous piece of garbage."
In the article, published Monday morning, Philips contends Diddy, Rosemond, Biggie and now-jailed promoter James Sabatino were all aware of the setup intended for Shakur.
According to the article, FBI interviews with an informant in 2002 — along with Philips' unnamed sources — revealed that Rosemond and Sabatino were "infuriated by what they saw as Shakur's insolent behavior," referring to the rapper's dispute with Rosemond associate Jacques "Haitan Jack" Agnant. Shakur, at the time, was on trial for molestation charges stemming from an incident with a woman in a New York hotel. Shakur claimed Agnant and his associates were responsible for the act.
On the night of the Quad Studios shooting, three associates of Rosemond's were allegedly instructed to beat Shakur but not shoot the rapper, according to the article. A man with close ties to Shakur was also said to be involved, taking $7,000 in exchange for his cooperation.
The FBI documents do not name the informant cited in the article, but the Times claims the informant's identity was discovered, and he verified to the newspaper his comments made in the 2002 statement, as did other sources who corroborated those events on the condition their identities not be revealed in the article.
According to the report, Rosemond and Sabatino tried to lure Shakur away from his recording home, Interscope Records, to Diddy's Bad Boy label. Sources told the Times that Rosemond, Sabatino, Diddy and Biggie took offense to Shakur's refusal, and that, coupled with his mention of Agnant in the sexual-assault trial, propelled Rosemond and Sabatino to seek revenge against Shakur.
The FBI informant alleged that Rosemond's invite to Shakur to record a song with a protégé of his was insincere, asserting that Rosemond never intended to fully record the session. And Sabatino, the informant explained, informed Diddy and Biggie of the plans in advance.
The shooting, many believe, lead to the complete fallout between Shakur and Biggie and eventually lead to the two rapper's death amid the East Coast/West Coast rap rivalry in the late '90s.
Mar 17 2008
Diddy Calls L.A. Times' Accusations About Tupac Assault 'Beyond Ridiculous'
Jimmy Rosemond, in separate statement, calls article 'garbage.'
By Jayson Rodriguez
Sean "Diddy" Combs and Jimmy "Henchman" Rosemond both responded quickly to allegations made in a Los Angeles Times article by reporter Chuck Philips that the pair, along with the Notorious B.I.G. and a New York promoter, knew in advance that Tupac Shakur would be assaulted at New York's Quad Recording Studios on November 30, 1994.
"This story is beyond ridiculous and is completely false," Diddy said in a statement released Monday (March 17). "Neither Biggie nor I had any knowledge of any attack before, during or after it happened. It is a complete lie to suggest that there was any involvement by Biggie or myself. I am shocked that the Los Angeles Times would be so irresponsible as to publish such a baseless and completely untrue story."
In a separate statement, Rosemond vehemently attacked the credibility of Philips, the article's author. Rosemond, who currently serves as the Game's manager, noted that he has never been questioned by police regarding the incident and criticized Philips' previous work, particularly the writer's suggestion that Biggie was present in Las Vegas the night Shakur was murdered and supplied the killer with the weapon. Rosemond also echoed Diddy's concern that the Times would print such a report.
"In the past 14 years, I have not even been questioned by law enforcement with regard to the assault of Tupac Shakur, let alone brought up on charges," Rosemond said in a statement provided to MTV News. "Chuck Philips, the writer who in the past has falsely claimed that [Christopher "Notorious B.I.G." Wallace] was in Las Vegas when Tupac was murdered and that Biggie supplied the gun that killed Tupac — only to be proven wrong, as Biggie was in New Jersey recuperating from a car accident. [The Times] has reached a new low by employing fourth-hand information from desperate jailhouse informants along with ancient FBI reports to create this fabrication.
"I simply ask for all rap fans and fans of Tupac to analyze this fiction for what it is, along with Phillips' motives behind it," the statement continued. "I am baffled as to why the Times would print this on its Web site, when a simple and fair investigation would reveal that the allegations are false. I am currently consulting with my attorneys about my legal rights regarding this libelous piece of garbage."
In the article, published Monday morning, Philips contends Diddy, Rosemond, Biggie and now-jailed promoter James Sabatino were all aware of the setup intended for Shakur.
According to the article, FBI interviews with an informant in 2002 — along with Philips' unnamed sources — revealed that Rosemond and Sabatino were "infuriated by what they saw as Shakur's insolent behavior," referring to the rapper's dispute with Rosemond associate Jacques "Haitan Jack" Agnant. Shakur, at the time, was on trial for molestation charges stemming from an incident with a woman in a New York hotel. Shakur claimed Agnant and his associates were responsible for the act.
On the night of the Quad Studios shooting, three associates of Rosemond's were allegedly instructed to beat Shakur but not shoot the rapper, according to the article. A man with close ties to Shakur was also said to be involved, taking $7,000 in exchange for his cooperation.
The FBI documents do not name the informant cited in the article, but the Times claims the informant's identity was discovered, and he verified to the newspaper his comments made in the 2002 statement, as did other sources who corroborated those events on the condition their identities not be revealed in the article.
According to the report, Rosemond and Sabatino tried to lure Shakur away from his recording home, Interscope Records, to Diddy's Bad Boy label. Sources told the Times that Rosemond, Sabatino, Diddy and Biggie took offense to Shakur's refusal, and that, coupled with his mention of Agnant in the sexual-assault trial, propelled Rosemond and Sabatino to seek revenge against Shakur.
The FBI informant alleged that Rosemond's invite to Shakur to record a song with a protégé of his was insincere, asserting that Rosemond never intended to fully record the session. And Sabatino, the informant explained, informed Diddy and Biggie of the plans in advance.
The shooting, many believe, lead to the complete fallout between Shakur and Biggie and eventually lead to the two rapper's death amid the East Coast/West Coast rap rivalry in the late '90s.
Blood Feud
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-naw-quad17mar17,0,400493,full.story
From the Los Angeles Times
Blood Feud
An attack on Tupac Shakur launched a hip-hop war
In 1994, Tupac Shakur was ambushed, beaten and shot at the Quad Recording Studios in New York. He insisted that friends of Sean 'Diddy' Combs were behind it. New information supports him.
By Chuck Philips
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
March 17, 2008
NEW YORK -- Cameras flashed as paramedics carried the victim into the glare of Times Square on a stretcher. Blood seeped through bandages from five gunshot wounds.
Tupac Shakur had been beaten, shot and left for dead at the Quad Recording Studios on New York's 7th Avenue. As he was borne to a waiting ambulance through a swarm of paparazzi on Nov. 30, 1994, the rap star thrust his middle finger into the air.
It was a portentous moment in hip-hop -- the start of a bicoastal war that would culminate years later in the killings of Shakur and rap's other leading star, Christopher Wallace, better known as the Notorious B.I.G.
The ambush at the Quad remains a source of fascination and frustration to music fans and law enforcement officials alike. No one has ever been charged in the attack.
Now, newly discovered information, including interviews with people who were at the studio that night, lends credence to Shakur's insistence that associates of rap impresario Sean "Diddy" Combs were behind the assault. Their alleged motives: to punish Shakur for disrespecting them and rejecting their business overtures and, not incidentally, to curry favor with Combs.
The information focuses on two New York hip-hop figures -- talent manager James "Jimmy Henchman" Rosemond and promoter James Sabatino, who is now in prison for unrelated crimes.
FBI records obtained recently by The Times say that a confidential informant told authorities in 2002 that Rosemond and Sabatino "set up the rapper Tupac Shakur to get shot at Quad Studios." The informant said Sabatino had told him that Shakur "had to be dealt with."
The records -- summaries of FBI interviews with the informant conducted in July and December 2002 -- provide details of how Shakur was lured to the studio and ambushed. Others with knowledge of the incident corroborated the informant's account in interviews with The Times and gave additional details.
According to this information, Rosemond and Sabatino, infuriated by what they saw as Shakur's insolent behavior, enticed him to the Quad by offering him $7,000 to provide a vocal track for a rap recording.
Three assailants -- reputedly friends of Rosemond -- were lying in wait. They were on orders to beat Shakur but not kill him and to make the incident look like a robbery, the sources said. They were told they could keep whatever jewelry or other valuables they could steal from Shakur and his entourage.
A member of Shakur's posse cooperated with the rapper's enemies, relaying their offer of a $7,000 payment and keeping them informed of his whereabouts on the night of the assault, according to the informant and the other sources.
Rosemond, who has served prison time for drug dealing and weapons offenses, has been described by Vibe magazine as "one of the most respected and feared players in hip-hop." His Czar Entertainment represents rappers Shyne, Too Short, Gucci Mane and the Game.
Rosemond has long denied any role in the Quad incident. He declined to be interviewed for this article, but his lawyer, Jeffrey Lichtman, dismissed the new information as "ancient double-hearsay allegations."
Lichtman noted that Rosemond had never been charged or questioned in connection with the attack -- a sign, Lichtman said, that federal authorities have "discounted" what the informant told them. Rosemond "was not involved in the assault and will not be prosecuted for it," Lichtman said.
Sabatino declined to comment.
Combs, whose business empire includes Bad Boy Records and clothing and fragrance lines, also declined to comment.
The FBI documents do not name the informant. The Times learned his identity and verified that he was at the Quad on the night of the assault. When contacted, the man said the FBI records accurately convey what happened, and what he told investigators. He and the other sources interviewed for this article discussed the events of Nov. 30, 1994, on condition that their names not be published.
Their accounts are consistent with Shakur's own. In interviews and on recordings, the rapper blamed Rosemond, Combs and their associates for the attack and promised to get even.
*
"Grab your Glocks when you see Tupac," he said in the 1996 song "Hit 'Em Up."
"Call the cops when you see Tupac
"Who shot me? But you punks didn't finish
"Now you're 'bout to feel the wrath of a menace!"
Roots of an ambush
The Quad ambush had its roots in events a year earlier, when Shakur returned to New York from California to film the movie "Above the Rim." The Brooklyn native, then 22, had two hit albums under his belt and was starting to taste success as an actor.
While in New York, he befriended Rosemond, the son of Haitian immigrants, who had run with street gangs and worked in the crack trade before gravitating to the hip-hop scene. He had a prominent scar on his forehead and cultivated an air of danger.
According to accounts given by the two men and others over the years, Rosemond, then 29, took Shakur under his wing, showing him around the city and introducing him to friends, including an ex-convict named Jacques "Haitian Jack" Agnant. Shakur and Agnant hit it off and were soon partying at clubs across Manhattan.
There was a serious side to the revelry. Rosemond was trying to establish himself as a talent manager -- he had formed a company called Henchman Productions -- and he and Agnant hoped to represent Shakur. They encouraged the rapper to sign a recording contract with Combs' fledgling Bad Boy label, which had recently received more than $2 million in capital from BMG's Arista division.
Shakur also became acquainted with Sabatino, a 19-year-old Italian American who co-promoted rap conventions with Rosemond. Sabatino had Brooklyn roots of a different kind that gave him cachet in the hip-hop world: His father was a captain in the Colombo crime family, according to federal authorities.
Like Rosemond and Agnant, Sabatino wanted to ride Combs' rising star, and he too leaned on Shakur to leave Interscope Records and sign with Bad Boy.
Shakur rejected these overtures. Members of Combs' circle saw this as an act of disrespect.
Shakur's behavior in New York grew increasingly provocative. He insulted music executives and gangsters alike. He brandished weapons in public. Even friends thought he was out of control.
In November 1993, Shakur, Agnant and two other men were arrested on charges of gang-raping a 19-year-old fan at the Parker Meridien Hotel in midtown Manhattan. Shakur posted bail and returned to Los Angeles.
A year later, he was back in New York to stand trial on the charges. By then, his former pals were laying plans to exact revenge, according to the FBI informant and the other sources.
Carefully laid plans
On Nov. 29, 1994, two dozen Bad Boy executives and associates gathered on the 10th floor of the Quad to record songs for a debut album by Junior M.A.F.I.A., a group formed by the Notorious B.I.G., Bad Boy's leading artist.
On hand were Combs, B.I.G., Rosemond, Agnant and Sabatino. Also present, among others, were rapper James "Lil' Cease" Lloyd and music executive Andre Harrell.
Rosemond had booked an adjacent studio to produce a recording by rapper Little Shawn, whose career he managed. This was the session at which Shakur was to be paid $7,000 for a guest vocal.
In fact, Rosemond never intended to record the session, according to the FBI informant and the other sources.
He had enlisted a trio of his friends from Brooklyn to ambush Shakur in the lobby of the Quad, the sources said.
Agnant and Sabatino helped plan the attack, working out the timing, arranging for the three assailants to be driven to the studio and mapping out their escape route, according to the informant and the other sources. Sabatino informed Combs and Wallace in advance that a trap had been laid for Shakur, the sources said.
Shakur's friend Randy "Stretch" Walker was in on the plan, the sources said. In the hours before the attack, Shakur and Rosemond argued several times over the phone about how much Shakur would be paid. After the dispute was settled, Walker notified Agnant when Shakur was en route, the sources said.
Around 11:30 p.m., Sabatino effectively locked down the 10th floor, quietly intercepting anyone who tried to leave, the FBI informant and the other sources said.
Fifteen minutes later, the lobby security guard was called away from his post, and the three assailants, dressed in army fatigues, moved into position. One sat in the guard's chair. The two others waited outside.
Just after midnight, Shakur walked in with Walker and his manager, Fred Moore. He buzzed the studio upstairs to let them know he was on his way. The assailant posing as a security guard flipped nonchalantly through a newspaper.
As the rapper and his crew walked toward the elevator, the two other assailants rushed in from outside and demanded that Shakur and the others turn over their jewelry. When Shakur refused, all three attackers began to pistol-whip him.
The rapper surprised them by drawing his own weapon. Gunfire erupted, and Shakur accidentally shot himself in the groin. The assailants shot Shakur four times. He sustained injuries to the head, hand and thigh -- serious but not life-threatening.
The men beat and kicked the rapper as he lay bleeding on the ground. Then, ripping a $40,000 gold medallion and chain from his neck, they escaped into the night.
Moore, who was also wounded, gave chase and collapsed in the street.
The FBI informant said the shots were audible in the 10th-floor studio. "Sabatino, Rosemond and Combs did not seem concerned about this," the informant told the FBI, though others in the studio "were very upset."
Shakur managed to limp into the elevator and push the button for the 10th floor. Walker rode up with him.
When the elevator doors opened, the rapper surveyed the assembled Bad Boy crowd.
In a 2005 interview with Vibe magazine, in which he denied any role in the attack, Rosemond described how the injured Shakur accused him of being in on the ambush.
Rosemond quoted the rapper as asking: "Why you let them know I'm coming here? You was the only [one] who knew, man. Why?"
In a bizarre twist, Shakur, bleeding badly, sat on a couch and rolled a joint, witnesses said. Then he phoned his girlfriend, who contacted his mother, former Black Panther Afeni Shakur. Harrell called 911. Paramedics showed up minutes later. Police began interviewing witnesses.
The FBI informant said Agnant told him that "anyone who thought the shooting was a robbery was crazy." He said Agnant "seemed mad that Shakur was still alive and kept calling" the hospital "to check on Shakur's status."
Efforts to reach Agnant for comment were unsuccessful.
Surgeons at Bellevue Hospital Center operated on Shakur for three hours. Later the same day, the rapper signed himself out of the hospital against doctors' advice.
The very next day -- Dec. 1, 1994 -- a heavily bandaged Shakur rolled into court in a wheelchair to hear the jury's verdict in the Parker Meridien case. He was convicted of first-degree sexual abuse and later sentenced to 4½ years in prison. (Agnant had pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges and avoided prison.)
The three men identified by the sources as Shakur's assailants are all serving time in federal penitentiaries for unrelated crimes. The Times is withholding their names because they have not been charged.
In correspondence with The Times, one of the men said that Rosemond orchestrated the ambush. Another was cryptic. He wrote that the statute of limitations for the assault had expired, and he offered to produce, for an unspecified fee, the medallion stolen from Shakur.
The third inmate denied involvement in the attack.
'Bad Boy's behind this'
The Quad ambush triggered a vicious, well-chronicled feud between East Coast and West Coast rappers and their record labels, New York-based Bad Boy and Death Row Records of Los Angeles.
At awards shows, in music videos and in song lyrics, the feuding camps laid down challenges that the stars' posses acted out with gunfire.
In April 1995, four months after the Quad attack, Vibe magazine published a prison interview with Shakur in which he said Combs and his associates were responsible.
Not long after, Bad Boy released a new song by the Notorious B.I.G., "Who Shot Ya?," which describes an ambush in which the victim is shot by three assailants. It closes with a taunt:
"You rewind this
"Bad Boy's behind this."
In June of that year, Death Row founder Marion "Suge" Knight began visiting Shakur in prison and wooing him to join his music label. Later that month, Knight mocked Combs onstage during a rap awards show in Manhattan.
In apparent retaliation, gunmen shot up a trailer outside a video shoot in New York in which Death Row rappers had been filmed stomping through a miniature model of Manhattan like Godzilla.
In August 1995, Knight's bodyguard was shot and killed at a club in Atlanta. Knight accused a Combs associate in the killing; no one was ever charged. Soon after, Shakur, still behind bars for his sexual-abuse conviction, signed a contract with Death Row. Knight posted a $1.4-million bond for the rapper, freeing him from prison while he appealed the verdict.
In November 1995 -- a year to the day after the Quad ambush -- Shakur's onetime companion, "Stretch" Walker, was shot dead in Queens, N.Y.
Early the following year, Death Row released Shakur's "All Eyez On Me," in which he ridiculed East Coast rappers. In a later release, "Hit 'Em Up," Shakur belittled Combs, bragged that he had sex with the Notorious B.I.G.'s wife and vowed retribution for the Quad assault.
On Sept. 7, 1996, Shakur was fatally wounded in a drive-by shooting on the Las Vegas Strip. Six months later, the Notorious B.I.G. was shot dead in Los Angeles, also in a drive-by. No one has been charged in either slaying.
Moving on
In the years after the mayhem at the Quad, Rosemond tried to dispel persistent rumors that he arranged the attack. He protested his innocence in Vibe magazine and appealed to Shakur, in vain, to cease his public accusations.
In 1996, Rosemond was convicted of drug and weapons offenses and sentenced to five years in prison. Released three years later, he reinvented himself as a talent manager. His turbulent past gave him street cred and helped attract a clientele of rappers to his Czar Entertainment. Two years ago, he was convicted of assaulting a radio disc jockey in Washington, D.C. He remains on probation for the offense.
Sabatino became a fixture in Combs' circle. He went on the road with B.I.G. and joined Combs on his 1997 "No Way Out" tour, helping him stage lavish private parties and land corporate sponsorships.
During the tour, Sabatino used fake credit cards to run up tens of thousands of dollars in charges for hotel suites, limousines and helicopters for the Bad Boy entourage. He was arrested in London and extradited to the U.S. He is serving an 11½-year prison term for wire fraud and racketeering.
In the years after the Quad, Combs transcended hip-hop to become an international celebrity and brand name. He has recorded Grammy-winning rap albums and acted in off-Broadway plays. He hosts a weekly MTV show, owns a restaurant in Atlanta and presides over the Sean John clothing line and the Unforgivable fragrance brand. Forbes magazine last year estimated his income at $23 million.
The New York police investigation into the Quad attack quickly hit a dead end. But federal prosecutors conducting a broad investigation of the rap business have continued to explore the incident and its role in the subsequent string of shootings and killings. Various music-industry figures have been called before a federal grand jury and questioned about what happened that night.
'Set me up'
Two months after Shakur was killed, Death Row Records released his album "The Don Killuminati." It entered the pop charts at No. 1 and sold 800,000 copies in its first week.
The CD cover depicts the rap star nailed to a cross like a martyred prophet. In the song "Against All Odds," Shakur, like a ghost from the grave, calls out those he held responsible for starting the violence:
"I take this war . . . deeply
"Done seen too many real players fall
"To let these [cowards] beat me
"Puffy, let's be honest, you a punk. . . .
"You can tell the people you roll with whatever you want
"But you and I know
"What's goin' on."
Shakur then mentions "a snitch named Haitian Jack" and promises "a payback" to "Jimmy Henchman in due time."
"Set me up, wet me up. . . . stuck me up," he sings.
"But you tricks never shut me up."
chuck.philips@latimes.com
From the Los Angeles Times
Blood Feud
An attack on Tupac Shakur launched a hip-hop war
In 1994, Tupac Shakur was ambushed, beaten and shot at the Quad Recording Studios in New York. He insisted that friends of Sean 'Diddy' Combs were behind it. New information supports him.
By Chuck Philips
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
March 17, 2008
NEW YORK -- Cameras flashed as paramedics carried the victim into the glare of Times Square on a stretcher. Blood seeped through bandages from five gunshot wounds.
Tupac Shakur had been beaten, shot and left for dead at the Quad Recording Studios on New York's 7th Avenue. As he was borne to a waiting ambulance through a swarm of paparazzi on Nov. 30, 1994, the rap star thrust his middle finger into the air.
It was a portentous moment in hip-hop -- the start of a bicoastal war that would culminate years later in the killings of Shakur and rap's other leading star, Christopher Wallace, better known as the Notorious B.I.G.
The ambush at the Quad remains a source of fascination and frustration to music fans and law enforcement officials alike. No one has ever been charged in the attack.
Now, newly discovered information, including interviews with people who were at the studio that night, lends credence to Shakur's insistence that associates of rap impresario Sean "Diddy" Combs were behind the assault. Their alleged motives: to punish Shakur for disrespecting them and rejecting their business overtures and, not incidentally, to curry favor with Combs.
The information focuses on two New York hip-hop figures -- talent manager James "Jimmy Henchman" Rosemond and promoter James Sabatino, who is now in prison for unrelated crimes.
FBI records obtained recently by The Times say that a confidential informant told authorities in 2002 that Rosemond and Sabatino "set up the rapper Tupac Shakur to get shot at Quad Studios." The informant said Sabatino had told him that Shakur "had to be dealt with."
The records -- summaries of FBI interviews with the informant conducted in July and December 2002 -- provide details of how Shakur was lured to the studio and ambushed. Others with knowledge of the incident corroborated the informant's account in interviews with The Times and gave additional details.
According to this information, Rosemond and Sabatino, infuriated by what they saw as Shakur's insolent behavior, enticed him to the Quad by offering him $7,000 to provide a vocal track for a rap recording.
Three assailants -- reputedly friends of Rosemond -- were lying in wait. They were on orders to beat Shakur but not kill him and to make the incident look like a robbery, the sources said. They were told they could keep whatever jewelry or other valuables they could steal from Shakur and his entourage.
A member of Shakur's posse cooperated with the rapper's enemies, relaying their offer of a $7,000 payment and keeping them informed of his whereabouts on the night of the assault, according to the informant and the other sources.
Rosemond, who has served prison time for drug dealing and weapons offenses, has been described by Vibe magazine as "one of the most respected and feared players in hip-hop." His Czar Entertainment represents rappers Shyne, Too Short, Gucci Mane and the Game.
Rosemond has long denied any role in the Quad incident. He declined to be interviewed for this article, but his lawyer, Jeffrey Lichtman, dismissed the new information as "ancient double-hearsay allegations."
Lichtman noted that Rosemond had never been charged or questioned in connection with the attack -- a sign, Lichtman said, that federal authorities have "discounted" what the informant told them. Rosemond "was not involved in the assault and will not be prosecuted for it," Lichtman said.
Sabatino declined to comment.
Combs, whose business empire includes Bad Boy Records and clothing and fragrance lines, also declined to comment.
The FBI documents do not name the informant. The Times learned his identity and verified that he was at the Quad on the night of the assault. When contacted, the man said the FBI records accurately convey what happened, and what he told investigators. He and the other sources interviewed for this article discussed the events of Nov. 30, 1994, on condition that their names not be published.
Their accounts are consistent with Shakur's own. In interviews and on recordings, the rapper blamed Rosemond, Combs and their associates for the attack and promised to get even.
*
"Grab your Glocks when you see Tupac," he said in the 1996 song "Hit 'Em Up."
"Call the cops when you see Tupac
"Who shot me? But you punks didn't finish
"Now you're 'bout to feel the wrath of a menace!"
Roots of an ambush
The Quad ambush had its roots in events a year earlier, when Shakur returned to New York from California to film the movie "Above the Rim." The Brooklyn native, then 22, had two hit albums under his belt and was starting to taste success as an actor.
While in New York, he befriended Rosemond, the son of Haitian immigrants, who had run with street gangs and worked in the crack trade before gravitating to the hip-hop scene. He had a prominent scar on his forehead and cultivated an air of danger.
According to accounts given by the two men and others over the years, Rosemond, then 29, took Shakur under his wing, showing him around the city and introducing him to friends, including an ex-convict named Jacques "Haitian Jack" Agnant. Shakur and Agnant hit it off and were soon partying at clubs across Manhattan.
There was a serious side to the revelry. Rosemond was trying to establish himself as a talent manager -- he had formed a company called Henchman Productions -- and he and Agnant hoped to represent Shakur. They encouraged the rapper to sign a recording contract with Combs' fledgling Bad Boy label, which had recently received more than $2 million in capital from BMG's Arista division.
Shakur also became acquainted with Sabatino, a 19-year-old Italian American who co-promoted rap conventions with Rosemond. Sabatino had Brooklyn roots of a different kind that gave him cachet in the hip-hop world: His father was a captain in the Colombo crime family, according to federal authorities.
Like Rosemond and Agnant, Sabatino wanted to ride Combs' rising star, and he too leaned on Shakur to leave Interscope Records and sign with Bad Boy.
Shakur rejected these overtures. Members of Combs' circle saw this as an act of disrespect.
Shakur's behavior in New York grew increasingly provocative. He insulted music executives and gangsters alike. He brandished weapons in public. Even friends thought he was out of control.
In November 1993, Shakur, Agnant and two other men were arrested on charges of gang-raping a 19-year-old fan at the Parker Meridien Hotel in midtown Manhattan. Shakur posted bail and returned to Los Angeles.
A year later, he was back in New York to stand trial on the charges. By then, his former pals were laying plans to exact revenge, according to the FBI informant and the other sources.
Carefully laid plans
On Nov. 29, 1994, two dozen Bad Boy executives and associates gathered on the 10th floor of the Quad to record songs for a debut album by Junior M.A.F.I.A., a group formed by the Notorious B.I.G., Bad Boy's leading artist.
On hand were Combs, B.I.G., Rosemond, Agnant and Sabatino. Also present, among others, were rapper James "Lil' Cease" Lloyd and music executive Andre Harrell.
Rosemond had booked an adjacent studio to produce a recording by rapper Little Shawn, whose career he managed. This was the session at which Shakur was to be paid $7,000 for a guest vocal.
In fact, Rosemond never intended to record the session, according to the FBI informant and the other sources.
He had enlisted a trio of his friends from Brooklyn to ambush Shakur in the lobby of the Quad, the sources said.
Agnant and Sabatino helped plan the attack, working out the timing, arranging for the three assailants to be driven to the studio and mapping out their escape route, according to the informant and the other sources. Sabatino informed Combs and Wallace in advance that a trap had been laid for Shakur, the sources said.
Shakur's friend Randy "Stretch" Walker was in on the plan, the sources said. In the hours before the attack, Shakur and Rosemond argued several times over the phone about how much Shakur would be paid. After the dispute was settled, Walker notified Agnant when Shakur was en route, the sources said.
Around 11:30 p.m., Sabatino effectively locked down the 10th floor, quietly intercepting anyone who tried to leave, the FBI informant and the other sources said.
Fifteen minutes later, the lobby security guard was called away from his post, and the three assailants, dressed in army fatigues, moved into position. One sat in the guard's chair. The two others waited outside.
Just after midnight, Shakur walked in with Walker and his manager, Fred Moore. He buzzed the studio upstairs to let them know he was on his way. The assailant posing as a security guard flipped nonchalantly through a newspaper.
As the rapper and his crew walked toward the elevator, the two other assailants rushed in from outside and demanded that Shakur and the others turn over their jewelry. When Shakur refused, all three attackers began to pistol-whip him.
The rapper surprised them by drawing his own weapon. Gunfire erupted, and Shakur accidentally shot himself in the groin. The assailants shot Shakur four times. He sustained injuries to the head, hand and thigh -- serious but not life-threatening.
The men beat and kicked the rapper as he lay bleeding on the ground. Then, ripping a $40,000 gold medallion and chain from his neck, they escaped into the night.
Moore, who was also wounded, gave chase and collapsed in the street.
The FBI informant said the shots were audible in the 10th-floor studio. "Sabatino, Rosemond and Combs did not seem concerned about this," the informant told the FBI, though others in the studio "were very upset."
Shakur managed to limp into the elevator and push the button for the 10th floor. Walker rode up with him.
When the elevator doors opened, the rapper surveyed the assembled Bad Boy crowd.
In a 2005 interview with Vibe magazine, in which he denied any role in the attack, Rosemond described how the injured Shakur accused him of being in on the ambush.
Rosemond quoted the rapper as asking: "Why you let them know I'm coming here? You was the only [one] who knew, man. Why?"
In a bizarre twist, Shakur, bleeding badly, sat on a couch and rolled a joint, witnesses said. Then he phoned his girlfriend, who contacted his mother, former Black Panther Afeni Shakur. Harrell called 911. Paramedics showed up minutes later. Police began interviewing witnesses.
The FBI informant said Agnant told him that "anyone who thought the shooting was a robbery was crazy." He said Agnant "seemed mad that Shakur was still alive and kept calling" the hospital "to check on Shakur's status."
Efforts to reach Agnant for comment were unsuccessful.
Surgeons at Bellevue Hospital Center operated on Shakur for three hours. Later the same day, the rapper signed himself out of the hospital against doctors' advice.
The very next day -- Dec. 1, 1994 -- a heavily bandaged Shakur rolled into court in a wheelchair to hear the jury's verdict in the Parker Meridien case. He was convicted of first-degree sexual abuse and later sentenced to 4½ years in prison. (Agnant had pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges and avoided prison.)
The three men identified by the sources as Shakur's assailants are all serving time in federal penitentiaries for unrelated crimes. The Times is withholding their names because they have not been charged.
In correspondence with The Times, one of the men said that Rosemond orchestrated the ambush. Another was cryptic. He wrote that the statute of limitations for the assault had expired, and he offered to produce, for an unspecified fee, the medallion stolen from Shakur.
The third inmate denied involvement in the attack.
'Bad Boy's behind this'
The Quad ambush triggered a vicious, well-chronicled feud between East Coast and West Coast rappers and their record labels, New York-based Bad Boy and Death Row Records of Los Angeles.
At awards shows, in music videos and in song lyrics, the feuding camps laid down challenges that the stars' posses acted out with gunfire.
In April 1995, four months after the Quad attack, Vibe magazine published a prison interview with Shakur in which he said Combs and his associates were responsible.
Not long after, Bad Boy released a new song by the Notorious B.I.G., "Who Shot Ya?," which describes an ambush in which the victim is shot by three assailants. It closes with a taunt:
"You rewind this
"Bad Boy's behind this."
In June of that year, Death Row founder Marion "Suge" Knight began visiting Shakur in prison and wooing him to join his music label. Later that month, Knight mocked Combs onstage during a rap awards show in Manhattan.
In apparent retaliation, gunmen shot up a trailer outside a video shoot in New York in which Death Row rappers had been filmed stomping through a miniature model of Manhattan like Godzilla.
In August 1995, Knight's bodyguard was shot and killed at a club in Atlanta. Knight accused a Combs associate in the killing; no one was ever charged. Soon after, Shakur, still behind bars for his sexual-abuse conviction, signed a contract with Death Row. Knight posted a $1.4-million bond for the rapper, freeing him from prison while he appealed the verdict.
In November 1995 -- a year to the day after the Quad ambush -- Shakur's onetime companion, "Stretch" Walker, was shot dead in Queens, N.Y.
Early the following year, Death Row released Shakur's "All Eyez On Me," in which he ridiculed East Coast rappers. In a later release, "Hit 'Em Up," Shakur belittled Combs, bragged that he had sex with the Notorious B.I.G.'s wife and vowed retribution for the Quad assault.
On Sept. 7, 1996, Shakur was fatally wounded in a drive-by shooting on the Las Vegas Strip. Six months later, the Notorious B.I.G. was shot dead in Los Angeles, also in a drive-by. No one has been charged in either slaying.
Moving on
In the years after the mayhem at the Quad, Rosemond tried to dispel persistent rumors that he arranged the attack. He protested his innocence in Vibe magazine and appealed to Shakur, in vain, to cease his public accusations.
In 1996, Rosemond was convicted of drug and weapons offenses and sentenced to five years in prison. Released three years later, he reinvented himself as a talent manager. His turbulent past gave him street cred and helped attract a clientele of rappers to his Czar Entertainment. Two years ago, he was convicted of assaulting a radio disc jockey in Washington, D.C. He remains on probation for the offense.
Sabatino became a fixture in Combs' circle. He went on the road with B.I.G. and joined Combs on his 1997 "No Way Out" tour, helping him stage lavish private parties and land corporate sponsorships.
During the tour, Sabatino used fake credit cards to run up tens of thousands of dollars in charges for hotel suites, limousines and helicopters for the Bad Boy entourage. He was arrested in London and extradited to the U.S. He is serving an 11½-year prison term for wire fraud and racketeering.
In the years after the Quad, Combs transcended hip-hop to become an international celebrity and brand name. He has recorded Grammy-winning rap albums and acted in off-Broadway plays. He hosts a weekly MTV show, owns a restaurant in Atlanta and presides over the Sean John clothing line and the Unforgivable fragrance brand. Forbes magazine last year estimated his income at $23 million.
The New York police investigation into the Quad attack quickly hit a dead end. But federal prosecutors conducting a broad investigation of the rap business have continued to explore the incident and its role in the subsequent string of shootings and killings. Various music-industry figures have been called before a federal grand jury and questioned about what happened that night.
'Set me up'
Two months after Shakur was killed, Death Row Records released his album "The Don Killuminati." It entered the pop charts at No. 1 and sold 800,000 copies in its first week.
The CD cover depicts the rap star nailed to a cross like a martyred prophet. In the song "Against All Odds," Shakur, like a ghost from the grave, calls out those he held responsible for starting the violence:
"I take this war . . . deeply
"Done seen too many real players fall
"To let these [cowards] beat me
"Puffy, let's be honest, you a punk. . . .
"You can tell the people you roll with whatever you want
"But you and I know
"What's goin' on."
Shakur then mentions "a snitch named Haitian Jack" and promises "a payback" to "Jimmy Henchman in due time."
"Set me up, wet me up. . . . stuck me up," he sings.
"But you tricks never shut me up."
chuck.philips@latimes.com
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