Sparks fly, Nevada judge sets deadline in bail bid for man charged in Tupac Shakur killing

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Sparks flew in court Tuesday as a Nevada judge rebuked a defense attorney and an ailing former Los Angeles-area gang leader lashed out against prosecutors during his renewed effort to be freed from jail to house arrest ahead of his trial in the 1996 killing of hip-hop legend Tupac Shakur.

Clark County District Court Judge Carli Kierny, who last month rejected Duane “Keffe D” Davis' bid to have a hip-hop music figure put up $112,500 to obtain Davis' $750,000 bail bond, issued a terse written order hours later giving Davis' lawyer, Carl Arnold, one week to provide more documentation about the source of the money.

The judge said she wanted “to lay to rest the court’s concern" that music executive Cash “Wack 100” Jones was "acting as a front or middleman for some other entity or person.”

In court, Kierny accused Arnold of shaping media attention about the case involving one of hip-hop music's most enduring mysteries.

“It seems like your plan, your end goal here, is to make some kind of show for the press of this trial,” Kierny said.

“That’s not my end goal here, your honor,” Arnold responded. “My end goal is to win the trial. If they want to follow me with cameras, they can do that.”

Arnold was recently featured in a British tabloid report that said he was fielding offers for a film crew to follow him working on Davis' behalf. The article quoted Arnold calling Shakur's death a “legacy” legal case and invoking the memory of Johnnie Cochran, a defense attorney for O.J. Simpson during his 1995 trial in Los Angeles. Cochran, who died in 2005, was famously credited with showing jurors a glove and saying, “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit."

Davis has been held in a Las Vegas jail since his arrest last September. He stood in shackles and complained about police and prosecutors reviewing material compiled by a former Los Angeles police detective, Greg Kading, for a 2011 book about the killings of Shakur in Las Vegas and rival rap icon Christopher Wallace six months later in Los Angeles. Wallace was known as The Notorious B.I.G. or Biggie Smalls.

“Them boxes should not be allowed," Davis said of records now being examined by police and prosecutors for possible evidence ahead of his trial, scheduled for Nov. 4.

“Mr. Greg Kading had those boxes at his house for 15 years in his attic doing all kind of TV interviews," Davis said. "He broke a proper agreement, and he broke the law, all kinds of stuff."

Davis also accused the prosecutors, Marc DiGiacomo and Binu Palal, of "trashing my family in this.”

“They not only ugly on the outside but they ugly on the inside too,” Davis said. “These two dudes right here.”

DiGiacomo and Palal did not respond later to requests for comment.

Davis said in his own 2019 tell-all memoir — on leading a street gang in his hometown of Compton, California — that he was promised immunity from prosecution when he told authorities in Los Angeles what he knew about the shootings of Shakur and Wallace.

No arrests have ever been made in the Wallace case. Davis is the only person ever charged in the Shakur killing.

Kading said by telephone Tuesday that he turned over his investigative records to Las Vegas police this year — several months after Davis was indicted and arrested at his home in suburban Henderson, Nevada. Kading said he broke no laws and none of the material was obtained or kept illegally.

“I don’t lose sleep over the fact that a confessed murderer is at odds with me for sharing information about his involvement in a murder,” Kading said. “None of what he said reveals new information. It’s well known. It was based on investigative resources from when I was at the LAPD.”

Nevada law prohibits convicted killers from profiting from their crime. But Arnold argued that since Davis hasn't been convicted, it didn't matter if Davis and Jones a record executive offering to underwrite Davis' $750,000 bail, plan to profit from selling Davis’ life story.

Jones, who has managed artists including Johnathan “Blueface” Porter and Jayceon “The Game” Taylor, testified in June that he wanted to put up money for Davis because Davis was fighting cancer and had “always been a monumental person in our community ... especially the urban community.”

Arnold on Tuesday characterized Davis’ story as intensely interesting to the public with or without mention of the Shakur killing. He called his client “one of the most notorious gang leaders of all of Southern California” and “the godfather of Compton.”

The attorney declined to comment following the court hearing.

The judge decided June 26 she wasn't convinced that Davis and Jones weren’t planning to profit. She also said she couldn’t determine if Jones wasn't serving as a “middleman” on behalf of another unnamed person.

Palal said in court that a judge can set any condition deemed necessary to ensure that a defendant returns to court for trial. If Davis is allowed to post a “gift" for release, he'd have no incentive to comply with court orders or appear for trial, the prosecutor said.

Davis has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder. If he's convicted, he could be sentenced to life in prison. He and prosecutors say he's the only person still alive who was in a car from which shots were fired into another car nearly 28 years ago, killing Shakur and wounding rap music mogul Marion “Suge” Knight.

Authorities allege that the shooting stemmed from competition between East Coast members of a Bloods gang and West Coast parts of a Crips gang, including Davis, for dominance in a musical genre known at the time as “gangsta rap.”

Knight, now 59, is serving 28 years in a California prison for killing a Compton businessman with a vehicle in 2015.

FILE - Rapper Tupac Shakur attends a voter registration event in South Central Los Angeles, Aug. 15, 1996. An ailing and aging former Los Angeles-area gang leader is due to ask a Nevada judge on Tuesday, July 23, 2024, to change her mind and release him from jail to house arrest ahead of his trial in the 1996 killing of music legend Tupac Shakur. (AP Photo/Frank Wiese, File)

FILE - Judge Carli Kierny sets a trial date for Duane "Keffe D" Davis in Clark County District Court Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2023, in Las Vegas. Davis is due to ask a Nevada judge on Tuesday, July 23, 2024, to change her mind and release him from jail to house arrest ahead of his trial in the 1996 killing of music legend Tupac Shakur. (Steve Marcus/Las Vegas Sun via AP, Pool, File)

FILE - Duane "Keffe D" Davis, who is accused of orchestrating the 1996 slaying of hip-hop icon Tupac Shakur, listens as Cash Jones testifies via video in court at the Regional Justice Center in Las Vegas, Tuesday, June 25, 2024. Davis is due to ask a Nevada judge on Tuesday, July 23, 2024, to change her mind and release him from jail to house arrest ahead of his trial in the 1996 killing of music legend Tupac Shakur. (K.M. Cannon/Las Vegas Review-Journal via AP, Pool, File)

Judge Carli Kierny presides over a hearing to reconsider Duane "Keffe D" Davis', who is accused of orchestrating the 1996 slaying of hip-hop icon Tupac Shakur, bond at the Regional Justice Center, on Tuesday, July. 23, 2024, in Las Vegas. (Bizuayehu Tesfaye/Las Vegas Review-Journal via AP)

Chief Deputy District Attorneys Marc DiGiacomo, left, and Binu Palal listen as attorney Carl Arnold, right, representing Duane "Keffe D" Davis, who is accused of orchestrating the 1996 slaying of hip-hop icon Tupac Shakur, addresses the court during a hearing to reconsider Davis' bond at the Regional Justice Center, on Tuesday, July. 23, 2024, in Las Vegas. (Bizuayehu Tesfaye/Las Vegas Review-Journal via AP)

Duane "Keffe D" Davis, who is accused of orchestrating the 1996 slaying of hip-hop icon Tupac Shakur, addresses the court as his attorney Carl Arnold, right, walks away during a hearing to reconsider his bond at the Regional Justice Center, on Tuesday, July. 23, 2024, in Las Vegas. (Bizuayehu Tesfaye/Las Vegas Review-Journal via AP)

Duane "Keffe D" Davis, who is accused of orchestrating the 1996 slaying of hip-hop icon Tupac Shakur, appears in court during a hearing to reconsider his bond at the Regional Justice Center, on Tuesday, July. 23, 2024, in Las Vegas. (Bizuayehu Tesfaye/Las Vegas Review-Journal via AP)

Duane "Keffe D" Davis, left, who is accused of orchestrating the 1996 slaying of hip-hop icon Tupac Shakur, listens to his attorney Carl Arnold during a hearing to reconsider his bond at the Regional Justice Center, on Tuesday, July. 23, 2024, in Las Vegas. (Bizuayehu Tesfaye/Las Vegas Review-Journal via AP)

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli air raids in the Gaza Strip killed more than a dozen people overnight into Saturday morning, hospital and local authorities said, as health workers were wrapping up the second phase of an urgent polio vaccination campaign designed to prevent a large-scale outbreak in the territory.

The vaccination drive was launched after health officials confirmed the first polio case in the Palestinian enclave in 25 years, in a 10-month-old boy whose leg is now paralyzed. The nine-day campaign run by the U.N. health agency and its partners began last Sunday in central Gaza and aims to vaccinate 640,000 children under the age of 10, an ambitious effort during a devastating war that has destroyed Gaza's health care system and much of its infrastructure.

The second phase of vaccinations in the southern part of the strip was in its final day Saturday, the Gaza Health Ministry said, before moving to the north and concluding on Monday. The ministry designated dozens of points across the southern cities of Khan Younis and Rafah for people to visit with their children to receive the vaccines.

Israel meanwhile kept up its military offensive. In central Gaza’s urban refugee camp of Nuseirat, Al-Awda Hospital said it had received the bodies of nine people killed in two separate air raids. One had hit a residential building in the early hours of Saturday, killing four people and wounding at least 10, the hospital said, while another five people were killed in a strike on a house in the western part of Nuseirat.

Separately, Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, central Gaza’s main hospital in the town of Deir al-Balah, said a woman and her two children were killed in another strike on a house in the nearby urban refugee camp of Bureij early Saturday. In the northern part of the Gaza Strip, an airstrike on a school-turned-shelter for displaced people in the town of Jabaliya killed at least four people and wounded about two dozen others, according to Gaza’s Civil Defense authority, which operates under the territory’s Hamas-run government.

The war began when Hamas and other militants staged a surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7, killing around 1,200 people, primarily civilians. Hamas is believed to still be holding more than 100 hostages. Israeli authorities estimate about a third are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-controlled Gaza, which doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count. The ministry reports more than 94,000 people have been wounded since the start of the war.

Violence has also spiked in the occupied West Bank, with a more than weeklong military operation in the town of Jenin leaving dozens of dead and a trail of destruction.

On Friday, a 13-year-old girl and an American protester were reported shot and killed in separate incidents in the West Bank.

Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, 26. of Seattle, who also holds Turkish nationality, died after being shot in the head on Friday, two Palestinian doctors said. Witnesses to the shooting said she had posed no threat to Israeli forces and was shot during a moment of calm following clashes earlier in the afternoon.

The White House has said it was “deeply disturbed” by the killing and has called on Israel to investigate. The Israeli military said it was looking into reports that troops had killed a foreign national while firing at an “instigator of violent activity” in the area of the protest.

Separately, Palestinian health officials said Israeli fire had killed a 13-year-old girl, Bana Laboom, in the West Bank village of Qaryout, south of Nablus, on Friday.

The Israeli military said on Saturday that an “initial inquiry indicates” security forces had been deployed to disperse a riot involving Palestinian and Israeli civilians that “included mutual rock hurling.” The security forces had fired shots in the air, the military said.

“A report was received regarding a Palestinian girl who was killed by shots in the area. The incident is under review,” the military added.

There are more than 500,000 Israeli settlers living in the West Bank, a territory captured by Israel in 1967. Increasing Israeli raids, attacks by Palestinian militants on Israelis and attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinians have left more than 690 Palestinians dead since the Israel-Hamas war began in October, according to Palestinian health officials.

Israel has been under increasing pressure from the United States and other allies to reach a cease-fire deal in Gaza, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insists on a demand that has emerged as a major sticking point in talks — continued Israeli control of the Philadelphi corridor, a narrow band along Gaza’s border with Egypt where Israel contends Hamas smuggles weapons into Gaza. Egypt and Hamas deny it.

Hamas has accused Israel of dragging out months of negotiations by issuing new demands, including for lasting Israeli control over both the Philadelphi corridor and a second corridor running across Gaza.

Hamas has offered to release all hostages in return for an end to the war, the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces and the release of a large number of Palestinian prisoners, including high-profile militants — broadly the terms called for under an outline for a deal put forward by U.S. President Joe Biden in July.

Magdy reported from Cairo and Jeffery from Ramallah, West Bank.

Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war

Palestinians gather around the body of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, 26, who was fatally shot by Israeli soldiers while participating in an anti-settlement protest in the West Bank, at the morgue of the Rafedia hospital, in the West Bank city of Nablus Friday, Sept. 6, 2024. (AP Photo)

Palestinians look at the body of Turkish-American Aysenur Ezgi Eygi at the hospital morgue in Nablus, West Bank, Saturday, Sept. 7, 2024. Ezgi Eygi, 26, died after being shot in the head on Friday, Palestinian doctors said. Witnesses to the shooting said the was fatally shot by Israeli forces in a moment of calm after clashes between Palestinians and Israeli forces in the northern West Bank. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)

Palestinians carry the body of Turkish-American Aysenur Ezgi Eygi at the hospital morgue in Nablus, West Bank, Saturday, Sept. 7, 2024. Ezgi Eygi, 26, died after being shot in the head on Friday, Palestinian doctors said. Witnesses to the shooting said the was fatally shot by Israeli forces in a moment of calm after clashes between Palestinians and Israeli forces in the northern West Bank. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)

Palestinian mourners gather around the covered bodies of Turkish-American Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, 26, and Bana Bakr, 13, at a morgue in Nablus, West Bank, Saturday, Sept. 7, 2024. Witnesses said Eygi, was fatally shot by Israeli forces in a moment of calm after clashes between Palestinians and Israeli forces near Nablus on Friday. Bakr was also killed by Israeli fire the Palestinian health ministry said, while the Israeli army said they were reviewing the incident which happened during clashes between Palestinians and Israeli nationals in an area south of Nablus. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)