Former American gang leader Duane “Keffe D” Davis has been sentenced to 40 years in prison for his role in the 1996 murder of legendary rapper Tupac Shakur, according to the BBC.
Davis, 63, was found guilty in September of one count of murder with a deadly weapon over the drive-by shooting that killed Shakur in Las Vegas on September 7, 1996.
Prosecutors accused Davis of orchestrating the killing, arguing that he supplied the firearm used in the shooting while his nephew, Orlando Anderson, pulled the trigger. Davis did not fire the gun himself.
Anderson, who denied involvement in the murder, died in an unrelated shooting in 1998.
During the trial, prosecutors relied heavily on Davis’ own statements, including his repeated acknowledgements that he was inside the white Cadillac from which the shots were fired.
Davis, a former leader of the South Side Compton Crips street gang, had disclosed information about his role in Shakur’s killing during a secret police interview in 2008. The interview was conducted in connection with the investigation into the murder of fellow rapper Christopher Wallace, popularly known as The Notorious B.I.G., under an agreement intended to protect Davis from prosecution.
However, Davis’ 2019 memoir, Compton Street Legend, and subsequent media interviews in which he discussed the killing undermined that protection, allowing prosecutors to use the police interview as evidence at his trial.
His defence team argued that his accounts were fabricated or exaggerated to generate publicity and boost book sales.
Davis has said he will appeal the conviction.
Shakur was 25 when he was killed and remains one of hip-hop’s most influential artists. He sold more than 75 million records worldwide, and his death became one of the most prominent unsolved murder cases in the United States for nearly three decades.
The case attracted widespread attention and fuelled numerous theories about the circumstances surrounding his death.
Davis’ conviction marked the first in the long-running case, bringing a significant development in the investigation into the rapper’s murder.