Imprisoned former rap mogul Marion “Suge” Knight, who for many years shared an acrimonious relationship with Sean “Diddy” Combs, urged his longtime archrival to take the stand in his ongoing trial.
Speaking to NCS’s Laura Coates in a short telephone interview from jail, the place he’s serving a 28-year-sentence for a lethal hit-and-run in 2015, Knight stated he believed Combs ought to “humanize” himself.
“I feel if he do tell his truth, he really would walk,” Knight stated. “If Puffy goes up there and says, ‘Hey … I did all the drugs, I wasn’t in control of my life at the time, or myself’ – he can humanize his old self and the jury might give him a shot.”
“But if they keep him sitting down, it’s like he’s scared to face the music,” Knight added. “He should just have his faith in God, put up his pants and go up there and tell his truth.”
Combs has pleaded not responsible to fees that embrace racketeering conspiracy, intercourse trafficking and transportation to interact in prostitution. If convicted on all counts, he might face up to life in jail.
It’s not clear whether or not Combs will testify at his trial. Taking the stand may be seen as a dangerous transfer for defendants as a result of it will probably open them up to a bruising cross-examination, specialists say.
Benjamin Chew, the co-lead counsel for actor Johnny Depp in his defamation trial, told NCS earlier this week that the customary knowledge is for defendants not to testify – however added it might profit Combs to defend himself and categorical regret over the allegations which have been introduced up throughout the prosecution’s case.
Knight, the co-founder of Death Row Records, was greatest recognized in the Nineteen Nineties for serving to promote West Coast rap in a area that had lengthy been dominated by East Coast artists. It was throughout this time that his rivalry with Combs ratcheted up – with their respective labels combating for dominance, and the two teams buying and selling public insults and diss tracks.
The feud reached its peak when Tupac Shakur and Christopher Wallace, recognized by his rap alias the Notorious B.I.G., had been shot and killed inside months of one another. Knight was driving the automotive wherein Shakur was killed in Las Vegas in 1996.
Knight has resurfaced in headlines in latest weeks throughout Combs’ trial, as a number of former staffers employed by Combs talked about the males’s rivalry.
One of Combs’ former private assistants, Capricorn Clark, stated Combs as soon as introduced her to Central Park at night time and introduced up her former employment with Death Row Records.
“He told me that he didn’t know that I had anything to do with Suge Knight, and if anything happened, he would have to kill me,” Clark said.
David James, one other former assistant, recalled an occasion when he and Combs’ safety guard bumped into Knight at a diner. When Combs heard about it, he ordered James to drive them again to the diner, bringing three handguns with him – however Knight had left by the time they arrived, James testified.
Knight was sentenced to jail in 2018 after pleading no contest to manslaughter in the demise of a person he was accused of hitting along with his truck on the set of the film “Straight Outta Compton.”