LAS VEGAS (AP) — A Nevada judge is being asked to decide Tuesday if a former Los Angeles-area gang leader will be freed from jail to house arrest ahead of his murder trial in the 1996 killing of hip-hop music legend Tupac Shakur in Las Vegas.
Duane “Keffe D” Davis, now 61, has sought to be released since shortly after his arrest last September made him the only person ever charged with a crime in a killing that for 27 years has drawn intense interest and speculation.
Prosecutors allege the gunfire that killed Shakur stemmed from competition between East Coast members of a Bloods gang sect and West Coast groups of a Crips sect, including Davis, for dominance in a musical genre known at the time as “gangsta rap.”
Davis’ defense attorney, Carl Arnold, declined by telephone Monday to speak ahead of a hearing before Clark County District Court Judge Carli Kierny in Las Vegas.
The judge has said Davis — a self-described former leader of a Crips gang sect in the Los Angeles suburb of Compton, California — can be freed on $750,000 bond if he can demonstrate that funds used to secure his release were obtained legally.