LOS ANGELES _ Two attorneys who formerly represented Marion "Suge" Knight after he was charged with murder pleaded not guilty to witness tampering charges in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom Friday.
Thaddeus Culpepper and Matthew Fletcher were indicted earlier this year on charges of conspiracy to commit bribery, conspiracy to commit subornation of perjury, conspiracy to commit obstruction of justice and serving as accessories after the fact to the 2015 murder Knight is accused of.
Culpepper was also indicted on two additional conspiracy counts, and Fletcher faces an additional charge of perjury.
Prosecutors accused both men of conspiring with Knight, his fiancee and others to pay witnesses to say they saw men with guns at Tam's Burgers in 2015, a critical claim for Knight's self-defense argument at his pending murder trial. Knight has been jailed for more than three years after he rammed his truck into two men in the parking lot of the eatery. Terry Carter, 55, was killed. Another man, Cle "Bone" Sloan, was seriously injured. Knight has pleaded not guilty.
In 2016, investigators with the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department obtained information that Knight was attempting to tamper with witnesses, according to court records. A judge then granted a series of court orders that allowed detectives to listen to Knight's jailhouse conversations with Fletcher, who was the attorney of record in the case at the time
According to the indictment, which was unsealed earlier this month, Fletcher told Knight he found a man who would say there were guns at the crime scene, but the witness would need to be paid. In the same conversation, according to prosecutors, Fletcher told Knight that $25,000 was a "fair investment to secure his freedom."
A sheriff's department informant later contacted Culpepper and asked him for money in exchange for testimony. The informant told Culpepper he was not at the crime scene on the day of Carter's death, prosecutors have alleged.
Culpepper had represented Knight in the murder case and an unrelated robbery case. But in a hearing earlier this week, Knight removed Culpepper from both cases in the wake of the indictment.
Fletcher was removed from the case two years ago.
Mark Geragos, who is representing Fletcher, told reporters outside the courtroom Friday that the partial transcripts of conversations showing Culpepper and Fletcher discussing witnesses and money are out of context.
"What has been put out there into the public sphere, I think, would be substantially undercut by the new evidence that we will present," he said.
He described the decision to arrest the lawyers as a "full-frontal assault on those who practice criminal defense." In past interviews with the Los Angeles Times, both attorneys have denied wrongdoing.
Culpepper has said any discussions he had about money involved paying for witness expenses, and nothing more.
The lawyers are scheduled to appear in court again on April 13. Knight's murder trial is set to begin on April 19.
