Suge Knight sentencing: Death Row Records co-founder stares down courtroom as he is given 28 years in prison

Olivia Tobin5 October 2018

The co-founder of Death Row Records Suge Knight has been jailed for 28 years and delivered a menacing stare across the courtoom after sentencing.

Marion ‘Suge’ Knight has been given the hefty sentence for injuring one man and killing another when he hit them with his truck four years ago.

The former rap mogul pleaded guilty no contest to voluntary manslaughter.

Knight was filmed staring the courtroom down as he was handed his sentence, after the court heard victim impact statements.

Former rap mogul Marion "Suge" Knight appears in court to formally receive his 28-year prison sentence
REUTERS

Terry Carter was killed after Knight and one of his longtime rivals, Cle "Bone" Sloan, started fighting outside a Compton burger stand in January 2015.

Knight was upset about his portrayal in an N.W.A. biopic, ‘Straight Outta Compton,’ which Mr Sloan was serving as a consultant on. Knight clipped Mr Sloan with his pickup truck, seriously injuring him, before speeding through the parking lot and running over Carter and fleeing.

While Carter's relatives said they hoped Knight's lengthy sentence will bring them peace, many had no kind words for him and criticised him for showing a complete lack of remorse.

Mr Carter's daughter, Crystal called Knight a "low-life thug," "career criminal" and "a disgusting, selfish disgrace to the human species.

"I ask that you sentence this unrepentant, remorseless, cold, callous menace to society to the maximum of 28 years," she told a judge.

Knight, 53, was jailed on Thursday
REUTERS

He will now live out the most, if not the rest of his life, in a California prison.

The 53-year-old, was a key player in the gangster rap scene that flourished in the 1990s, and his label once listed Dr Dre, Tupac Shakur and Snoop Dogg among its artists.

He has prior convictions for armed robbery and assault with a gun. He pleaded no contest in 1995 and was sentenced to five years' probation for assaulting two rap entertainers at a Hollywood recording studio in 1992.

He was sentenced in February 1997 to prison for violating terms of that probation by taking part in a fight at a Las Vegas hotel hours before Tupac's was fatally wounded in a drive-by attack as he rode in Knight's car just east of the Las Vegas Strip.

Tupac's killing remains unsolved.

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