U.S. rapper Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs was further implicated in new court documents that claimed he paid $1 million to have Tupac Shakur assassinated in 1996.
Mr Combs’ name appeared in the records over 75 times.
Key suspect Duane ‘Keefe D’ Davis, who was apprehended in Tupac’s murder probe last year, said Diddy had funded his rival’s assassination on September 7, 1996, according to court documents obtained by U.S. Sun.
Pseudonyms ranging from Puff Daddy, P Diddy and Diddy were mentioned in the documents filed on July 18, where the first reference indicated that there was already bad blood between Diddy and Tupac.
The “deadly rivalry” between Diddy’s Bad Boy Records on the East Coast and Tupac’s Death Row Records, then owned by Marion “Suge” Knight on the West Coast, was not a secret in the hip-hop industry.
Keefe told law enforcement that Diddy paid $1 million to another gangster, Eric Von Martin, to kill Tupac.
According to Keefe’s account in court records, Diddy reached out after the news of Tupac’s assassination broke, asking whether it was “us” or another rival gang.
“Sean Combs reaches out to Defendant wondering if South Side Crips were responsible for Shakur’s death by asking, ‘Is that us?’,” court records showed. “Defendant, beaming with pride, answers, ‘Yes’.”
Keefe had willingly given up the information under the assumption that he had immunity from prosecution, which had now backfired and could be used to convict him.
“Defendant( Keefe) asserted that the conspiracy to commit the murder began in California between Defendant, Eric ‘Zip’ Martin, and Sean Combs,” court filings stated
Keefe admitted to LA police detectives that his nephew Orlando ‘Baby Lane’ Anderson “popped the dude (Tupac), narrating in detail how his nephew “leaned over, rolled down the window, and popped them.”
“Defendant [Keefe] has asserted publicly that he only told on himself and wasn’t trying to provide evidence against anyone else in his conversations with police. However, this statement belies this claim, as he suggested that Sean Combs paid Eric Von Martin a million dollars for the killings,” the court records stated.
When police questioned him, asking, “When you said paid, paid by Puffy, right?” Keefe responded with a “Yeah,” court records showed.
“I wish I never met Puff Daddy, period. I swear to God…He messed up my life, man. I was, I was rich, up under the radar, all that, man…it’s all gone,” court records cited Keefe as saying.