|
 Matthew Fletcher and Thaddeus Culpepper were accused of trying
to pay off people to provide favorable testimony at Knight's
trial for murder charges stemming from a fatal Los Angeles
hit-and-run, prosecutors said in a statement.
Culpepper said the charges in a Jan. 24 grand jury indictment
were "pure retaliation" by prosecutors.
"We've come very close to being able to prove criminal
procedural fraud on their part," Culpepper said of the district
attorney's office, declining to provide further details on his
allegations.
Fletcher was not immediately available for comment. A lawyer
representing Knight did not immediately respond to a request for
comment.
Knight, co-founder of influential hip-hop label Death Row
Records, is awaiting trial on charges he ran down two men with
his Ford F-150 pick-up truck outside Tam's Burgers in the Los
Angeles suburb of Compton on Jan. 29, 2015.
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Fletcher allegedly told Knight it would take about $20,000 to
$25,000 in bribes to potential witnesses to secure his freedom, the
prosecutors said.
In 2016, an informant allegedly told Culpepper he would be willing
to testify he saw weapons at the murder scene, even though the
informant was not there when the crime occurred, the indictment
said. Culpepper and Knight allegedly agreed to use the informant as
a defense witness at trial.
If convicted, Fletcher and Culpepper face a possible maximum
sentence of three years and eight months in jail, according to the
district attorney's office.
(Reporting By Andrew Hay; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Jonathan
Oatis)
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