LOS ANGELES (AP) — Former rap music mogul Marion “Suge” Knight and comedian Katt Williams are scheduled to appear in a Los Angeles courtroom on Tuesday to be re-arraigned in a robbery case.
The hearing comes two weeks after a judge determined the men should stand trial on robbery charges filed after a celebrity photographer accused the pair of stealing her camera in Beverly Hills in September 2014.
Williams’ attorney acknowledged that the comedian briefly took the photographer’s camera but said at an Oct. 13 hearing that he did so only to erase images of Knight’s son. The photographer testified that a confrontation with Williams and another woman left her with a concussion and wrist and hand injuries.
Knight’s attorney denies the Death Row Records co-founder was involved in taking the camera. Attorney Thomas Mesereau said at the hearing that threats Knight made toward photographer Leslie Redden were attempts to get her to not shoot photos of his young son.
“The only evidence that exists is he didn’t want his son photographed,” Mesereau said. “Any father would have acted as he did.”
Redden recorded a verbal confrontation with Knight on a camera hanging from her neck, but the device did not capture the physical struggle over her professional camera.
Knight remains jailed without bail in a separate murder case filed after he ran over two men outside a Compton burger stand in January, killing one and seriously injuring an adviser to the film “Straight Outta Compton.”
Knight, 50, has pleaded not guilty and already been ordered to stand trial in that case, but no trial date has been set. Coen set a Dec. 11 court hearing to get an update on the case.
Knight was a key player in the gangster rap scene that flourished in the 1990s, and his Death Row Records label once listed Dr. Dre, Tupac Shakur and Snoop Dogg among its artists. He lost control of the company after it was forced into bankruptcy.
He faces potential life sentences if convicted in either case because of prior convictions for armed robbery and assault with a gun.
Williams, 44, has starred in several comedy specials and appeared in films such as “First Sunday” and “Friday After Next.”
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(Photo Source: AP)
