Tupac: Day 3 - Diddy and the FBI

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0:38Hello and welcome back to the Tupac Murder Trial by Fame Under Fire with me, Anushka Matanda-Dawati. It is day three of the trial and we're going to talk about two things today. One is proffer agreements and the other one is diddy. So let's start with proffers because we've been hearing about this since the beginning. Now it's the prosecution's theory that Dwayne Keefe D. Davis was offered a proffer agreement in 2008, where he spoke to law enforcement, believing that he couldn't incriminate himself as long as he didn't go and make public statements or contradict what he'd said there publicly. Now, in that 2008 proffer agreement, that recorded interview, the prosecution alleged that Dwayne Kifidi Davis admitted that he was the one who supplied the weapon to Orlando Anderson, who they say is the shooter, the murderer of Tupac Shakur.

1:19But Kifidi is criminally liable because he was the architect of the crime. So that's what a proffer is. The agreement is on the table, your attorney signs into it and says, yes, we will agree to testify as long as these words essentially can't come back and bite my client in the butt. So we heard from someone called Darren Dupree, who's with the LAPD Homicide Unit. And we're actually going to talk about another rapper right now. If you watched or listened to our preview episode, you will know about this. But actually, what's happened with Keefe D came out of an investigation into the death of Christopher Wallace, the notorious B.I.G.

1:49So in the mid 2000s, they reopened the investigation into the death of Biggie Smalls. And they identify Dwayne Kefidi Davis as a suspect because the car he was driving at that time matched a car that they thought was around during the shooting. So they go to interview him. And the way that they do this is they build up a pretty strong drug trafficking case against him. Dupree testified that he could have been facing life in jail with what they had on him. They go with the drug trafficking charge and they say, if you talk to us in a proffer agreement, we will not essentially stick you in jail for the rest of your life.

2:19And he agrees to do this. Dupree testified that they went to see Dwayne Kifidi Davis at his residence to tell him, look, we've got this drug charge against you. We want you to cooperate with us. And he says, when they meet him there, well, I don't know anything about Big E. I don't know anything about that one. Dupree said they were shocked when he said that because he understood that to mean the other one being the murder of Tupac Shakur. And then he says that Kifidi followed it up by saying, we did the other one. Now, Dupree testified that they were not expecting this at all. They were not there to investigate the murder of Tupac Shakur.

2:49They were there to investigate the murder of Christopher Wallace. But after saying that, they did agree to sit down with Keefe D and enter that proffer agreement where he would testify this time about what he knew about the murder of Tupac Shakur. They sat down together on December 18th, 2008. And we are going to hear these recordings, I think, tomorrow. There's about five hours of them to get through. But what Dupree testified was that Keefe D told him the story that the prosecution had been telling the jury and this court thus far. that he was in Las Vegas, that he was after Tupac and Suge Knight as a retaliation for the beating of his nephew, Orlando Anderson, at the MGM, that he pulled up on the car and he was on the wrong side of the vehicle to fire the shots.

3:28So he threw his gun into the back of the car. And originally it went to someone called Andre who did not want to fire the shots. And then Orlando Anderson took the gun and ultimately fired the killing shots that ended up in the death of Tupac Shakur six days later. So Dupree is claiming that Dwayne Kifidi Davis has told them all of this information. He was in Vegas. He essentially was the architect of the crime. He did supply the weapon. It was his nephew who shot Tupac Shakur. So after this 2008 interview, he then becomes an official confidential informant. And then he reveals in later testimony that he believes that it was actually Sean Diddy Combs who offered a sum of money to somebody called Eric Zip Martin.

4:05We've heard about him before. He was the connector between Kifidi and Diddy. He offered the money to Zip Martin to give to Dwayne Davis to carry out the shooting of Tupac Shakur and Suge Knight. Now, this is an allegation that Keefe D has made himself publicly multiple times. He claims it was a million dollars, 500 ,000 for each of them. Now, he recently backtracked on this, but this was something that Dupree testified that he told law enforcement officers. Now, he said that this started a different chain of events because the FBI were involved. Now, the FBI, he said, were pursuing a RICO case against Bad Boy and Death Row Records.

4:36Bad Boy did he own Death Row Records, Suge Knight owned. But then Dupree explained to the court that he thought there were two lines of investigation here. He was concerned with the murder of Tupac Shakur, the murder of Christopher Wallace, whereas the FBI were concerned with Death Row Records and Bad Boy Entertainment because they believed that both of those record labels were set up using drug money and essentially functioning as racketeering enterprises. This is trying to solidify that Death Row Records was built on narcotics and Bad Boy Records. Now, you don't understand this, but I'm from the hood.

5:12Everybody knows it was, OK? Everybody knows that those record companies were started with the sales of narcotics. So, the feds were looking at a RICO. We cared about the murders. Now, we know that Diddy did go on trial for RICO recently and was not found guilty of that crime, although he is in federal jail for transportation of prostitution on two counts. It was interesting to hear that the FBI had been investigating Bad Boy and Death Row for a very long time. So when Keefe Dee provided testimony, as Dupree alleges, that Sean Diddy Combs offered money to Eric Zip Martin to give to him to carry out this shooting, this interested the Federal Bureau of Investigations.

5:49And then it became a mission to get Keefe Dee to go undercover in New York to reopen the relationship with Eric Zip Martin, to get him essentially to cooperate and say, yes, I was offered money. John Puffy Combs was supposed to have given money to Zip Martin to give to Mr Davis for payment of the Tupac murder. But when they arrived in New York, Dupree testified that Zip Martin was suffering from cancer. He was dying from cancer and he said he was out of the game. And so that investigation ultimately led nowhere. They didn't find anything on Diddy. They didn't find anything about bad boy records.

6:24And so this was quite a revelation for Dupree because he is alleging in court. and he told the jury that Dwayne Keefe D. Davis was cooperating with them. He went undercover in New York to try and reopen the relationship with Eric Zip Martin to get him to cooperate or testify or say in some way that he was given money by Sean Diddy Combs or Puffy Combs, as everyone's calling him at this trial, to basically murder Tupac Shakur and Suge Knight. And although Dupree did say they were trying to solidify the idea that Death Row and Bad Boy were built on narcotics, quote, I'm from the hood, everyone knows they were, they ultimately didn't find that in the investigation.

6:58Now, this was a, like I said, this was a big revelation because we could see the level to which QFD had been cooperating with law enforcements, as the prosecution alleged. Now, in cross-examination from Michael Sanft, who's lead counsel for QFD, his defense lawyer, he said to Dupree, so you're a gang expert, right? And Dupree was like, yes, this was my specialty. I'm also from the area. I know how this works. I know what it's like in Compton. It's a small space. It's a 10-mile radius. Everybody knows each other. They all grew up together. and there was a gang war. Essentially, that started after the murder of Tupac Shakur.

7:29And Samt got him to testify to what that looked like in Compton. And he said that there were multiple shootings. We heard in opening statements that an 11-year-old girl lost her life. He repeated that and said there were other people that were shot as well. It was extremely dangerous. If you were from a particular gang, you couldn't go in other areas that you lived in. It was a war, he said. But then Samt started asking him, was Dwayne Davis ever shot? Was Orlando Anderson ever shot? were the two other gentlemen who were allegedly in the car in Las Vegas in that white Cadillac, were they ever shot?

7:59Even though people were getting shot in Compton, people were being suspected of them being the murderer of Tupac Shakur. Were these men ever targets? In fact, isn't it true that Orlando Anderson, although he was shot and did die, it was in a completely unrelated incident. And he was actually shot by another South Compton crip, not by somebody from the opposing gang. And Dupree said, yeah, this is all true. So you can see Sam there trying to introduce the idea that if everybody knew who it was and everybody was out for blood, why wouldn't at least one of the four people inside that car have been a target or a victim of a shooting back in Compton?

8:32Now, then you have redirect. So you get direct examination, cross-examination, redirect, recross, re-recross, re-redirect, which they love to do in this trial. They're back up and down, getting their steps in left, right and center. But we've got redirect. Correct. And the prosecution asked Dupree, in all of this, when you sit down with Dwayne Kifidi Davis, why on earth do you believe that he is telling you the truth about what happened that night in Las Vegas? Remember, this is what Samft, defense counsel, has said. Essentially, my client is a liar. He's been talking out of his ass the entire time.

9:03So prosecution picked up on that line of argument and said, why did you think, Dupree, you are a gang expert, you are LAPD homicide unit, you were in the room with him. Why did you think he was being honest? And he said, Orlando Anderson, the nephew of Dwayne Keefe D. Davis, was the prince of the family. Everyone in that family loved him. They adored him, including Dwayne Keefe D. Davis. I did not believe that when he told that story about the murder of Tupac Shakur, that he would have ever implicated his cousin, that he would have ever put that dirt on his hand, saying actually he was the one who fired the killing shots.

9:34I didn't think Mr. Davis was lying because he put the gun in his nephew's hand. Mr. Orlando Anderson, he was the prince and his family loved him. I didn't think that Mr. Davis would put the gun in his own nephew's hand, dead or alive, and put that smut on him unless it was true. The person that killed Tupac, in the neighborhood, he's a hero. In the world, he's a villain. Because although in the Southside Compton Crips, murdering Tupac Shakur would have been a badge of honor, as soon as you leave that area and the rest of the world, it was not a good thing. And I don't believe he would have put that on his nephew because I knew how much he loved him.

10:15And this was quite a pivotal moment in the testimony and got quite a reaction in the courtroom because we were hearing for the first time why they believed it was true. And that is how the testimony ended from Dupree. And we know that we are going to be hearing around five hours of those recordings from 2008 and 2009, where the prosecution allege that Kifi D admitted to his role in the shooting of Tupac Shakur. We heard an opening statement, a clip of him saying, if he was on my side of the car, I'd have shot myself. So we have a lot to get through in terms of hearing from the defendant himself, which is very, very rare in this trial, although we'll be hearing from him from the past.

10:49We are going to hear about five hours of Keefe D talking. Now, the other witness today was Wade Lee, who is a special agent from the FBI. Now, he spoke to Keefe D in the late 90s. And he said during those interviews, he repeatedly denied knowing who killed Tupac Shakur. He actually offered the idea that he thought it might have been Suge Knight because he believed that Suge Knight thought that Tupac was going to leave the record label and therefore needed to act quickly. He also said that the Compton Police Department might have been working with Suge Knight and might have assisted him in this.

11:17So he was throwing out different theories about who he possibly thought could have murdered Tupac Shakur but did not say that he had any knowledge of what happened. Now, Wade Lee did say that Dwayne Kifidi Davis testified that he was in Las Vegas that night But after what happened at the MGM, he went back to a hotel room that was under the name Orlando Anderson, his nephew. Now, when Sam got up to do cross-examination, he said, did you ever verify that that was true, that there was a hotel room booked under Orlando Anderson? And he said, no, we never verified that. We were just taking down Dwayne Davis's account of what happened that night.

11:48He also offers, again, in those late 90s interviews, as we've heard, he says in 2008 as well, that it was actually Sean Diddy Combs who offered money for a hit on Tupac Shakur. And so the defense did pick up on this. there's been a consistency of the allegation he's been making, how far was it investigated? And then we ultimately heard later in the day about that trip to New York, that undercover operation that led nowhere. Now, in cross-examination, Sampt went some way in trying to establish a better picture of Dwayne Kifidi Davis through Wade Lee's eyes because he'd been investigating him. He said, you were wiretapping Dwayne Davis's phone.

12:21So you were listening to conversations that he was having with other people. Did you ever hear him admit to murdering Tupac Shakur or even being in Las Vegas on the night of the 7th September 1996. And he says, yeah, I believe he said something about being in Vegas, but we never heard him admit to being involved in the death of Tupac Shakur. Were there any phone calls at all in which this guy over here, Mr. Davis, somehow admitted that he was either involved in the murder of Tupac Shakur or that he was even in Las Vegas on the day it happened? No, that would be, no, there was nothing. being in Las Vegas.

12:55I believe there was conversation about being in Vegas and coming back to Vegas after the incident. And then Sam asked him, but you were also investigating whether he was an individual with a propensity for violence. And so in your witness statements, in the interviews you did with other people, did you ever hear about Dwayne Keefe D. Davis putting out a hit on somebody? So instigating a process whereby somebody would lose their life because he wanted them to. And he said, we never heard that Dwayne Keefe D. Davis did this. Did you ever come across any information in your wiretaps or anything like that of Mr.

13:30Davis putting out a hit on someone or green lighting some type of violent act to be caused against somebody? No. No? No facts to that? Of him being violent? Yeah. That's correct. Samp is trying to chip away at the presentation of his client as somebody who would go and plan a murder, drive around looking for Suge Nye and Tupac Shakur, get a weapon, supply it to a shooter who was in a better position, essentially unpick the narrative that the prosecution have been presenting. And Wade Lee did say, you know, we never heard this. We never heard him cop to the murder. We never heard that he was the kind of guy who put out hits on people.

14:05And then he said, you were investigating this. And the story went that there was an altercation at a mall that was then followed by the altercation at the MGM. Now, at that mall, that was the alleged chain snatching that Orlando Anderson had allegedly participated in. Did you ever go to that mall and check out whether anything actually went down there? Did you speak to people at the mall? He said, no, we never verified that information. That's not actually our job. We were just taking in his account. So you can see Samt is trying to say, where are the actual facts, which is what he kept repeating in his opening statements.

14:36But tomorrow, we expect to hear a lot of testimony out of the mouth of Dwayne Keefe D. Davis himself, where he admits, allegedly, according to the prosecution, of being the architect of the murder of Tupac Shakur. Of course, we know that the defense's position is that their client was talking, quote, a lot of crap. That's it for this episode of the Tupac murder trial from Fema De Fire with me, Anushka Matanda-Dowdy. If you want to support this podcast, please subscribe and turn on those push notifications so you never miss a thing. We are doing daily episodes right here in Las Vegas from the courthouse itself.

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