Marion "Suge" Knight, founder of Death Row Records, has pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter in the death of a friend, according to NBC News and other news outlets. Knight has been in jail since turning himself in immediately after a January 2015 incident where his car hit Cle "Bone" Sloan and Terry Carter, who died as a result. The crash occurred next to the filming of a promotional shoot for the biopic film "Straight Outta Compton," which focused on N.W.A., a rap group that Knight was involved with. ADVERTISEMENT Knight initially faced a murder charge, but his plea agreement means he avoids that charge in exchange for a 28-year prison sentence. A sentencing hearing has been scheduled for Oct. 4. Prosecutors argued that the collision was deliberate, as Knight had had a confrontation earlier in the day with people affiliated with the movie. Death Row Records was once the home of Dr. Dre, of N.W.A., before he left to start his own label in 1996.<doc-sep>Fallen rap impresario Marion “Suge” Knight pleaded no contest to voluntary manslaughter Thursday, marking the end of a years-long legal saga for a bruising giant in the West Coast rap scene who was once described as the “most feared man in hip-hop.” Knight reached a plea agreement Thursday in connection with the 2015 hit-and-run death of Terry Carter outside a Compton restaurant after a dispute related to the film “Straight Outta Compton.” Knight, 53, could serve up to 28 years in state prison. Dressed in orange jail scrubs, the onetime hip-hop juggernaut stared straight ahead as Judge Ronald S. Coen detailed the plea agreement Thursday afternoon. He simply replied “Yes” when asked if he accepted it. Advertisement Crystal Carter, the youngest daughter of Knight’s victim, rushed out of the courtroom wearing sunglasses after the plea deal was struck. A pendant reading “Carter” hung near her heart. She said it was a relief to see the court proceedings, which had become “a complete circus,” wind to a close after three and a half years. “But it will never be a win to the family,” she said. “Can’t bring my dad back.” Knight’s attorney, Albert DeBlanc Jr., first contacted the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office about a possible plea deal Wednesday, according to Lillian Carter, the victim’s wife. Negotiations stretched into early Thursday afternoon, with Knight at one point fighting against the idea of having to take the plea in the presence of media lining the courtroom, according to a source familiar with the negotiations. The source requested anonymity to discuss the case candidly. The manslaughter charge carries an 11-year prison sentence, which will be doubled in Knight’s case because he has a prior felony conviction, according to a statement released by the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office. An additional six years will be added to that sentence because Knight was charged with using a deadly weapon to commit a violent felony, prosecutors said. Knight will be sentenced Oct. 4, and prosecutors agreed to dismiss his other pending criminal matters as part of the deal. Knight had been separately accused of threatening “Straight Outta Compton” director F. Gary Gray and robbing a photographer in Beverly Hills. Suge Knight’s legal troubles: A timeline » 1 / 15 Marion “Suge” Knight walks into the Los Angeles County sheriff’s West Hollywood station early Friday. (OnScene.TV) 2 / 15 A Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy walks past part of the Tam’s Burgers parking lot, where the hit-and-run occurred. (Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times) 3 / 15 Marion Suge Knight continues to talk while being led out of Los Angeles County Superior Court on Monday. During the hearing, he described his medical ailments and continued to speak over the judge, drawing a sharp rebuke. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times) 4 / 15 Deputies step in to check on Marion “Suge” Knight, who collapsed in court during his bail hearing on murder and other charges Friday morning. A prosecutor called the incident a stunt. Bail was set at $25 million. (Robyn Beck / Pool) 5 / 15 Marion “Suge” Knight arrives in court on March 9. Knight is accused of striking two men with his pickup and killing one, during an altercation in a Compton parking lot in January. (Kevork Djansezian / Pool Photo) 6 / 15 Judge Ronald S. Coen accepts a plea from Marion “Suge” Knight of no contest to voluntary manslaughter in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 7 / 15 Former rap mogul Marion “Suge” Knight, left, with his defense attorney Albert DeBlanc, listens to the terms of his plea of no contest to voluntary manslaughter Thursday in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 8 / 15 A Los Angeles County sheriff’s patrol car blocks Central and East Rosecrans avenues in Compton, where a fatal hit-and-run occurred Thursday. (Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times) 9 / 15 Los Angeles County sheriff’s officials at the site of a hit-and-run in Compton involving music mogul Suge Knight. (Michael Robinson Chavez / Los Angeles Times) 10 / 15 An officer at the scene of the hit-and-run, a restaurant parking lot. (Michael Robinson Chavez / Los Angeles Times) 11 / 15 Jose Salgado, 9, watches from Central Avenue as Los Angeles County sheriff’s officials investigate the scene in a Tam’s Burgers parking lot, where two men were struck in a hit-and-run involving music mogul Suge Knight. (Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times) 12 / 15 A family photo of Terry Carter and his wife Lillian Carter. Terry Carter was killed by Marion “Suge” Knight in 2015 (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 13 / 15 Lt. John Corina of the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department at a news conference Thursday night on the hit-and-run involving music mogul Suge Knight. Investigators are treating it as a homicide. (Michael Robinson Chavez / Los Angeles Times Times) 14 / 15 Suge Knight at his Track Recording studio in 2002. ( Los Angeles Times) 15 / 15 Rapper Tupac Shakur, left, and Marion “Suge” Knight attend an Aug. 15, 1996, voter registration event in South Central Los Angeles. (Frank Wiese / Associated Press) Advertisement Knight has been behind bars since January 2015, when he was arrested and charged with intentionally ramming his Ford F-150 pickup into two men in the driveway of Tam’s Burgers at Central and East Rosecrans avenues in Compton. He originally faced life without the possibility of parole if convicted. Carter, a 55-year-old Compton native who knew Knight through the music industry, was killed. Cle “Bone” Sloan, who was involved in a physical altercation with Knight moments before the incident, was severely injured but survived. Knight and his legal team have described the victim as a longtime friend and previously said the mogul was “heartbroken” to learn Carter had been killed. Carter’s wife, Lillian, disputed that in a recent interview with the Los Angeles Times, saying that her husband only knew Knight through business dealings and that the two had not been close in several years.<doc-sep>Marion Knight, the one-time rap mogul better known as Suge, will be sentenced to 28 years in prison after pleading no contest Thursday to reduced charges in connection with a 2015 hit-and-run death tied to the film “Straight Outta Compton,” after a bizarre chain of events that delayed his murder trial. Mr. Knight, 53, pleaded no contest to voluntary manslaughter in Los Angeles Superior Court after a plea deal was reached just days before jury selection was to begin. He had been charged with murder, attempted murder and hit-and-run as a result of a dispute on the set of a trailer for the popular N.W.A biopic, which included a depiction of Mr. Knight. The authorities said Mr. Knight killed Terry Carter, 55, a Compton, Calif., businessman, and injured a security consultant, Cle Sloan, when he ran over both at a local burger stand. His lawyers said at the time that he was fleeing and had acted in self-defense. The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office said in an announcement of the plea bargain that Mr. Knight would be sentenced to 11 years in prison for the manslaughter count, which would be doubled under California’s three-strikes law based on his prior convictions. Because this conviction was for a “serious and violent” felony that used a deadly weapon — a Ford F-150 Raptor pickup truck — he received an additional six years. The official sentencing is scheduled for Oct. 4.<doc-sep>The deal, in which Knight admitted using a "deadly and dangerous weapon" when he ran down two men with his vehicle, calls for him to serve 22 years in prison for voluntary manslaughter with a further six years added because of the US "three-strikes" law relating to repeated violations.<doc-sep>
Averting a murder trial that had been nearly four years in coming, former rap mogul Marion “Suge” Knight pleaded no contest Thursday to voluntary manslaughter for running over and killing a Compton businessman and agreed to serve nearly 30 years in prison. The Death Row Records co-founder entered the plea in Los Angeles Superior Court after striking a deal with prosecutors, and has agreed to serve 28 years. Jury selection for his trial, which could have led to a life sentence, had been scheduled to begin Monday. Knight was charged with murder, attempted murder and hit-and-run after fleeing the scene of a dispute in January 2015 outside a Compton burger stand. Knight and Cle “Bone” Sloan, a consultant on the N.W.A. biopic “Straight Outta Compton,” traded punches before Knight clipping him with his pickup truck and ran over businessman Terry Carter, who died from his injuries. Knight’s attorneys have said he was acting in self-defense and was fleeing armed attackers when he ran over Carter and Sloan. Sloan has denied he was carrying a gun during the confrontation. During Thursday’s hearing, Knight, wearing orange jail attire with his arms and legs in chains, answered Judge Ronald Coen’s questions, loudly and quickly saying “no contest” when the judge asked for his plea. He will be formally sentenced on Oct. 4. The plea deal calls for Knight to serve 22 years in prison on the voluntary manslaughter count, and another six years because it is a third strike violation. Knight disagreed with the judge’s description of one of his previous strikes and put a pause in the proceedings that briefly raised tension in the courtroom. “You served nine years for it,” Coen said, before Knight agreed to move on. Carter’s daughter, Crystal, sat in the front row of the courtroom and displayed no visible reaction to the proceedings. “I’m surprised he pleaded out,” Crystal Carter said outside court. “Normally he likes the cameras to be on him 24-7.” The agreement also absolves Knight in two other cases, both from 2014. He was accused of stealing a camera from a woman and of sending threatening text messages to “Straight Outta Compton” director F. Gary Gray. Delays, detours and drama marked the run-up to Knight’s trial, which was expected to begin Oct. 1 under tight security and secrecy. Court officials had said that no witness list would be released ahead of the trial, and that some witnesses might not be identified by name during the case. Surveillance video that showed Knight hitting the two men with his truck was likely to play a central role for both sides. Sloan, who had feuded with Knight for years in a dispute with roots in their Compton gang ties, was likely to have been the trial’s key witness, but may have been a difficult one for the prosecution. Despite giving a detailed account of the incident to police on the day it happened, just a few months later at a preliminary hearing he claimed to have little memory of it, and even refused at first to identify Knight as the person sitting in the courtroom who he’d fought with. Knight collapsed during one court hearing, two of his former attorneys were indicted on witness-tampering charges, and his fiancee pleaded no contest to selling video of Knight hitting the two men with his truck. His attorney Albert DeBlanc Jr., appointed by the court five months ago, was his 16th, and Knight tried to fire him and get yet another lawyer just a day before the deal was reached. Knight would frequently, against the advice of Coen and his attorneys, speak extensively during hearings, complaining about jail conditions, his attorneys and his health issues. On Thursday, while Coen read legal language about the plea and told Knight he was subject to deportation if he was not a citizen, Knight said “ICE is coming to get me?” to a smattering of laughs. DeBlanc declined comment on the plea agreement. Prosecutors did not speak to reporters outside court. 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. Knight lost control of the company after it was forced into bankruptcy. He has prior felony 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.