News: Judge Says Notorious B.I.G.'s Family Deceived The Court
The judge who awarded the family of the late Notorious B.I.G. $1.1 million against the city in a mistrial back in July recently said that she had been deceived about evidence in the wrongful-death lawsuit, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Federal Judge Florence-Marie Cooper ordered on the family lawyers on May 23 to explain information in a document that appeared to contradict a claim he made in the trial last year, according to the paper.
Only three days of testimony were underway, when a judge in Los Angeles halted the case due to police possibly withholding evidence, according to the Associated Press.
The Wallace family has laid blame on the city of Los Angeles for being responsible for the death of her son, and trying to cover-up LAPD involvement in the slaying. The suit seeks unspecified damages.
Although the Wallace family has yet to comment on the case, a press conference is scheduled for 11 a.m. in Los Angeles this morning.
Perry R. Sanders, one of the family's lawyers, claimed that he had no information on an alleged police conspiracy behind the murder of the rapper outside the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles almost a decade ago.
Cooper declared the mistrial last summer after finding that a Los Angeles police detective had hidden statements linking the killing to rogue LAPD officers David A. Mack and Rafael Perez. And ordered the city to pay $1.1 million in attorney fees.
But, according to the Times, Cooper said she was deceived by the family, and the city now says B.I.G. family attorney Sanders had information on the alleged conspiracy before the trial was underway. As evidence, the city gave Cooper a four-page report prepared in November 2002 by a private investigator working for Biggie's family. The report contains details of an interview with a prison informant that the family said it had not seen, according to Vincent Marella, a lawyer representing the city.
"This shows beyond any question that everything they said they never had, they had," Marella told the Times.
Sanders denies the claims. "We made our entire file 100 percent accessible [to police], not in an attempt to file a lawsuit, but in an attempt to solve a murder," Sanders told the paper.
|
