The FBI & David Mack & Suge & Biggie & the LAPD

By Chuck Philips
Los Angeles Times

VENUS BERNARDO-PRUDHOMME / AP

LOS ANGELES — Seven years after the killing of rap star Notorious B.I.G., the FBI is investigating allegations that a rogue Los Angeles police officer orchestrated the slaying with rap mogul Marion "Suge" Knight, according to court documents and law-enforcement sources.
The FBI is pursuing a 6-year-old theory that then-Officer David Mack, acting at Knight's request, arranged for Amir Muhammad, Mack's friend and college roommate, to ambush the rapper outside the Petersen Automotive Museum.

The Los Angeles Police Department over the years has offered conflicting assessments of the theory, which police at one point took seriously. Documents show that LAPD detectives are focusing on an alternative theory that centers on a Houston rap entrepreneur.

Mack, Knight and Muhammad, a Southern California mortgage broker, long have denied involvement in the 1997 killing.

"I have stated from the outset that I have nothing whatsoever to do with any of this," Muhammad, who also uses the name Harry Billups, said Thursday from his attorney's office. "I've done nothing wrong. I don't have anything to hide."

Knight, founder of Death Row Records, also rejected the allegations.

"I don't know David Mack or Amir Muhammad. I've never met them," he said from Mule Creek State Prison, where he is serving time for a probation violation. "The FBI has never contacted me, but I'm glad they are looking into all of this stuff. I hope they solve it."

Notorious B.I.G., whose real name was Christopher Wallace, was gunned down March 9, 1997, in front of hundreds of people who had just left a music-industry party at the museum. The New York rapper was sitting in the passenger seat of a sport-utility vehicle at a red light when a lone assassin in a dark Chevrolet Impala pulled up in the neighboring lane and opened fire.

The killing occurred six months after rap star Tupac Shakur was fatally wounded in a drive-by attack in Las Vegas.

No one has been charged in either killing. Detectives quickly speculated that the murders may have stemmed from a rivalry between East Coast and West Coast rappers. Shakur and Wallace had been feuding, and a rivalry between their record labels, L.A.-based Death Row and New York-based Bad Boy Entertainment, had escalated into assaults and shootings.

Each label used gang members for protection, and police investigated the possibility that both killings were committed by members of Compton, Calif.'s Southside Crips.

The theory now being investigated by the FBI was first advanced in 1998 by then-LAPD Detective Russell Poole.

According to Poole, Knight had Shakur killed because the rap star was about to leave his label — and Knight then had Wallace murdered to make it appear that both slayings were the result of a bicoastal rap feud. Poole contends that Knight may have used corrupt police officers to help carry out both murders.

Mack, one-time partner of disgraced former LAPD Officer Rafael Perez, came under suspicion after he was arrested in December 1997 for robbing a bank. He is serving a 14-year prison term.

Mack owned a black Impala similar to the car used in the Wallace slaying, and a witness reported seeing him at the scene. Informants told investigators that Mack may have provided security for Knight. Both men grew up in Compton.

Poole began scrutinizing Muhammad, who was a classmate of Mack's at the University of Oregon, after learning that he had visited Mack in prison in December 1997. A jailhouse informant had told detectives several months earlier that Wallace's killer was a Southside Crip who went by a Middle Eastern name, possibly "Amir" or "Ashmir" — and that his true name might be Abraham or Kenny or Keeky.

A driver's-license photo of Muhammad resembles a police sketch of Wallace's killer based on witness descriptions. One witness told police he saw a man who resembled Muhammad outside the museum the night of the shooting.

Muhammad, in the phone interview, said the account was unfounded. "Anybody who says they saw me there that night or that I had anything to do with this is a liar," he said.

Poole resigned from the LAPD in 1999 after disputes with his superiors about the direction of various investigations, including the one into Wallace's murder.

Poole since has promoted his theory of the Wallace slaying in newspaper interviews and books and through appearances on documentaries and TV shows. He has endorsed a screenplay treatment of it that is being shopped to Hollywood studios. Actor Sylvester Stallone has discussed portraying Poole in a movie.

Poole also joined forces with Wallace's mother, Voletta, who filed a wrongful-death suit against the city of Los Angeles two years ago. The suit contends the LAPD covered up police involvement in the rapper's killing.

The case is scheduled to go to trial July 27 in federal court in Los Angeles, with Poole testifying for the plaintiffs.

The FBI's interest in the case was sparked by a TV special on the Wallace killing aired on the VH1 cable channel last summer. An FBI agent who saw the show contacted attorneys for the Wallace family, who alleged that witnesses were afraid to talk to LAPD detectives, documents show.

The FBI declined to comment.