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MGM tape used to hold Suge
Knight called threat to community
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- A probation officer, citing videotape of a Las Vegas brawl shortly before the shooting of rapper Tupac Shakur, urged that the head of rap label Death Row Records remain jailed until a probation hearing.
Marion "Suge" Knight, who was slightly injured in the shooting that left Shakur mortally wounded, was jailed last month for violating probation. He surrendered after a warrant was issued for alleged probation violations.
In a report filed Monday with Superior Court Judge J. Stephen Czuleger, probation officer Barry Nodorf said Knight, president and chief executive officer of the label, is a flight risk and a "threat to the community."
The recommendation came after Nodorf viewed an MGM Grand security videotape that showed a man who "appears" to be Knight in a fight on the day Shakur was shot.
The videotape shows the man pushing down another man and kicking him, Nodorf said in a seven-page report.
"There are compelling reasons to believe that another probation violation has occurred," the report said.
"This fact, coupled with the defendant's potential to the community and the possibility of his being a flight risk, leaves the probation officer with no alternative except to make the following recommendation. It is recommended that probation remain revoked; and that the defendant continue to be remanded pending a formal violation hearing," the report said.
A bail hearing is scheduled for Thursday. The probation hearing is set for Nov. 15.
Knight's attorney, David Kenner, denounced the report.
"The allegation that Suge Knight beat someone up at the MGM is meritless," Kenner said.
According to Nodorf, the videotape appears to show Knight, 31, with a group of seven or eight men who beat a man identified as "Orlando."
A hotel security guard also identified Knight as one of the assailants in the Sept. 7 scuffle, the report said.
Hours after the fight, someone pulled alongside Knight's car and began shooting, hitting Shakur. The rapper died days later at University Medical Center.
A man named Orlando Anderson was questioned by police last month about his possible involvement in the Las Vegas incident and later released.
In a plea agreement reached in February 1995, Knight pleaded no contest to assault charges and received five years probation for a July 13, 1992, attack on two aspiring rappers in a Hollywood recording studio.
The alleged probation violations include smoking marijuana, failing to take drug tests and leaving the country without notifying the probation department.
Edi M.O. Faal, an attorney representing Anderson, said the district attorney's office has not contacted his client about the latest developments in Knight's case.
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