Judge reconsidering bail for Tupac slaying suspect

A Las Vegas judge is again considering whether to let Duane “Keffe D” Davis post bail after he was accused of orchestrating the killing of Tupac Shakur more than 27 years ago.

Last month District Judge Carli Kierny did not allow Davis to post a $112,500 bond premium from Cash Jones, who testified that the money came from the entertainment business. The judge said she wanted to ensure that the bond did not come from Davis’ proceeds from talking about his alleged involvement in the fatal shooting.

Davis was indicted in September 2023 on a charge of murder with a deadly weapon with the intent to promote, further or assist a criminal gang.

Defense attorney Carl Arnold has renewed an effort to allow his client to post bond, arguing that there is no law preventing Davis from profiting off of the alleged crime while he has not yet been convicted.

“This whole order that prevents him from being able to collect money, like I said, it’s an infringement on his right of freedom of speech,” Arnold said during a court hearing Tuesday.

Meanwhile, prosecutors said that Davis is still a threat to the public, and that allowing him to post bond from an unverified source would not address that alleged threat.

Chief Deputy District Attorney Marc DiGiacomo argued that prosecutors have received new evidence showing a witness who is still alive corroborating that Davis was in Las Vegas the night Shakur was fatally shot, on Sept. 7, 1996.

Prosecutors have alleged that Davis, a member of the South Side Crips, authorized the drive-by shooting that killed Shakur and injured Death Row Records CEO Marion “Suge” Knight, as part of an ongoing feud between the South Side Crips and the Bloods-associated Mob Piru gang.

The Mob Piru gang had ties to Death Row Records, while prosecutors have said that the South Side Crips were associated with Bad Boy Records, a label owned by Sean “Diddy” Combs that represented Christopher “Biggie” Wallace.

The shooting is alleged to have been in retaliation for a fight at the MGM Grand involving Shakur, Knight and Davis’ nephew Orlando Anderson.

DiGiacomo said that the witness, Corey Edwards, gave a statement to police in 2006, stating that he saw Davis with his nephew and two other men in Las Vegas after the fight.

“They were all mad, and talking about getting back at the persons who jumped Anderson,” Edwards told police in 2006, according to court documents filed by prosecutors last week.

“He makes that statement two years before any confession the defendant ever made,” DiGiacomo argued Tuesday.

Arnold dismissed Edwards’ statement as unreliable. Following the hearing, Arnold said Edwards was another South Side Crips members and is Davis’ cousin.

“A corroborating witness, that happens all the time. It shouldn’t cause the court to go back and review his bail,” Arnold told the judge.

DiGiacomo said prosecutors recently received the evidence as part of a large amount of records regarding the investigation into Wallace’s murder, which happened in Los Angeles six months after Shakur was killed.

Davis spoke out in court at the end of Tuesday’s hearing, verbally attacking prosecutors and the evidence from the Wallace investigation.

“Those boxes should not be allowed,” Davis said. “It’s tainted evidence, everything.”

Davis claimed that evidence from the Wallace investigation has been with former Los Angeles Police Department Detective Greg Kading for years.

Kading has previously publicized information from a 2008 “proffer agreement” between Davis and federal agents, in which Davis reportedly gave information about Shakur’s killing in exchange for a lighter sentence on drug charges. Prosecutors have said it remains unclear what information from that proffer agreement could be admissible in the current proceedings.

Kading told the Las Vegas Review-Journal on Tuesday that he handed over records related to the Wallace investigation to Las Vegas investigators after Davis was indicted.

“I informed them that I had case files and that there was a lot of cross-contamination between the Biggie case and the Tupac case,” Kading said.

During Tuesdays’ hearing, Kierny said there were “excellent arguments” on both sides, and that she would issue a decision in the coming days.

Contact Katelyn Newberg at knewberg@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0240.