FURIOUS self-confessed gangster Keefe D raged at prosecutors and a former Los Angeles detective during his intense bail bond hearing on Tuesday.
Keefe D looked downcast as Judge Carli Kierny decided she would consider whether he could be freed after a 45-minute hearing in courtroom 12B at the Las Vegas Judicial Court.
The one-time Compton crime boss Keefe had hoped to be released from jail to raise cash by filming a reality show and discuss potential movie projects.
His lawyer Carl Arnold, argued that Keefe was legally allowed to make money from his reputation given he was not convicted for Pac’s death.
However, prosecutors argued that Keefe’s bail money was supplied by a friend who had “deceived ” the court and freeing him would be dangerous to the community.
Last month Kierny expressed concern about Keefe – real name Duane Davis – earning money from the case, and denied bail over uncertainty about the source of the bail bond supplied by rap entertainer Cash “Wack 100” Jones.
Prosecutors called out Jones and Keefe in court stating the pair had misled the judge over Jones’ motive for handing out a $112,500 bail bond.
Keefe denied having struck any deal with Jones for TV projects in the hearing with Jones insisting that was not his business plan.
But prosecutors referenced recorded jail phone calls where Keefe, speaking to his wife Paula, discussed how Cash Jones had a “Jewish partner” from “Paragon” offering a TV deal.
The State played Jones telling Keefe he’d “spoken to television ‘big wigs'”…and ” that his priority is to get at least ten episodes done before Defendant’s trial starts. “
Getting heated Keefe, 61, stared at prosecutors declaring: “They are not only ugly on the outside but they are ugly on the inside.
Keefe launched his tirade about “ these two dudes right here” referring to Chief Deputy District Attorneys and prosecutors Marc DiGiacomo and Binu Palal.
The Tupac murder suspect also vented about evidence from his own confessions to police officers in Los Angeles being referenced in court papers over his trial.
Keefe, who his lawyer described as “The Godfather Of Compton” during the hearing, fired off against retired LAPD task force officer Greg Kading.
Kading was central to Keefe’s taped confession of being responsible for Tupac’s 1996 killing – which originally protected him from prosecution in a “proffer deal.”
By The Sun’s Senior Reporter Emma Parry, who has been reporting on the Tupac murder for the past 10 years
TUPAC fans have been waiting for justice for the iconic rapper for almost 28 years.
Finally in September 2023 there appeared to be progress with the arrest of Duane “Keefe D” Davis – a former Southside Crip gangster from Compton, LA – who had been telling the world for years that he and his fellow “gang soldiers” were responsible for the hit.
I’ve been reporting on the case for several years and it always appeared pretty cut and dry…Keefe had spent the past decade gaining notoriety by boasting about his alleged involvement in the shooting – now he was finally getting what he deserves. But despite Keefe running his mouth for years, I now believe a guilty verdict in November’s trial is far from guaranteed.
Keefe describes in great detail in his memoir Compton Street Legend what went down the night Pac was shot, extracts from which The U.S. Sun has published.
He claimed that he was offered a million dollars by rapper Diddy to “handle” Tupac and Suge Knight and when he and his Crip gangsters came across the pair driving near the Strip in Las Vegas on September 7, 1996, Keefe alleged he passed the gun to his nephew Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson who took the shot. Keefe said if Pac had been on his side: “I would have blast”.
Keefe repeated the claims multiple times over the years, on YouTube channels, documentaries, and even in taped confessions to police, when he believed he could not be prosecuted. In one confession to the LAPD, Keefe appeared completely remorseless telling detectives: “We didn’t give a f**k…The ambulance [for Tupac] was parked right here next to us. That s**t was as funny as a motherf**ker.”
The Sun has been publishing stories about Keefe’s self confessed involvement in the crime since 2018.
I sent many links to his confessions to Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, asking them why this man had not been arrested yet. They would thank me for the info but say that they could not comment because the case was still active. From the outside, it looked like no action was being taken at all.
We spoke to former detectives involved in the case and documentary makers who all felt utterly frustrated at the lack of progress in the case. We even published a plea from former LAPD detective Greg Kading, who had probed the murders, urging Las Vegas cops to arrest Keefe, back in 2020.
For years, the case appeared to have been forgotten and ignored, to be left forever unsolved.
But finally, in the summer of 2023, we got word from our sources that there had been a huge development in the case. A secret grand jury was due to be held on whether or not Keefe should be indicted. I was dubious at first but around the same time a house in Henderson, Nevada, linked to Keefe, was raided in July as part of the Tupac investigation.
Things were heating up.
Later that summer, behind closed doors, jurors listened to hours of testimony from former cops, detectives, and coroners involved in the Tupac case and gangsters and associates of Keefe’s and Pac’s from back in the day. They were shown graphic photos of Tupac’s bullet-ridden body. After days of evidence, they decided there was enough evidence to prosecute Keefe.
Once the secret documents were released I poured over the transcripts. While interesting, many of the witnesses were telling stories they’d heard second-hand. None of the prosecution witnesses had a clear look at who shot Pac. One witness Devonta Lee claimed another gangster called Big Dre took the shot – not Orlando. Maybe things weren’t as clear-cut as I first thought.
Keefe was then arrested on September 30, 2023 at his home. Bodycam footage we obtained from the scene showed Keefe bragging to cops even as he was handcuffed in the back of a police car – telling officers he was involved in the “biggest case in Las Vegas history”.
Following Keefe’s multiple appearances in court, he seems to have lost much of that bravado and now cuts a sad, lonely figure.
Suffering from various health problems as a result of cancer, he’s struggling to cope with the brutalities of jail life and can’t get together enough money to afford his bail. He feels some of his old Southside Crip associates – men he handed wads of cash to in his glory days, have just abandoned him.
Keefe is now desperate to get out of jail, and his defense stems is leaning on his claim that he completely made up his involvement in the Tupac murder for fame and money. He saw other people cashing in on the murder so he thought he would too. He reckons his confessions to police were all lies – he made it up because he was under a plea deal and thought it would help him beat his other charges.
And, according to his lawyer Carl Arnold, he wasn’t even in Las Vegas on the night of the shooting. Arnold remains convinced he will see his client walk free and their secret weapon could be former Death Row Records boss Suge.
As the only other person still alive from either car, Suge, currently in prison for a fatal hit and run, would be a key witness. Suge is the only person still alive who knows what went down – he saw the shooter. While he’s said he won’t testify at the November trial, Suge has claimed in a TMZ interview from prison that Orlando was not the shooter, which again throws into doubt Keefe’s version of events.
Keefe and his lawyer are hoping they might be able to change his mind and persuade him to testify for the defense. And Suge holds the power to blow the prosecution’s case apart.
And if Keefe walks free, will there ever be justice for Pac?
The two-and-a-half-hour tape – which the U.S. Sun has played several extracts from in the last six months – has been submitted into evidence by prosecutors in the case.
At Tuesday’s hearing, DiGiacomo referenced a “box” with “substantial evidence” from the LAPD 2008 Biggie Smalls gang task probe, being assessed for potential use as evidence in Keefe’s prosecution.
That revelation prompted Keefe to address Judge Carli Kierny directly about his feelings on the case and Kading, who has written a book and given interviews detailing how Keefe was the “shot caller” for the assassination.
Keefe, ignoring Kierny’s request to address the court through his lawyer Carl Arnold, said: “Greg Kading had them boxes in his house for 15 years in his attic doing all kind of TV interviews. Them boxes should not be allowed…it is tainted evidence. The man broke a proffer agreement.”
Standing Keefe then made allegations against Kading: “And he broke the law. All kinds of stuff. A federal judge in LA did a 142-page thing about it. Look it up on the internet.”
The self-confessed drug dealer then acted out Kading picking out files from boxes and accusing him of passing details on “any internet site”
Kierny calmly explained to Keefe that it was uncertain which aspects of the Kading evidence would be used by the state.
That enraged the suspect, dressed in blue CCDC overalls, who raised his voice, firing back: “They just used something in those boxes. from 1996. They know what they did.”
“They crashed my family in this,” ranted Keefe.
“They did my daughter first, then my son, and they just did my wife in the last papers . These two dudes right here.”
Kierny responded: “Alright.
“At this point there is nothing before me to exclude any sort of evidence. There’s been no motion filed about proffer. I don’t know if Mr Arnold plans on challenging that or not.”
“Thank you, judge,” Keefe said before sitting down.
The rant came at the end of the 45-minute court session where Kierny failed to render a decision.
Kierny said: “There are a couple of things I need to look at.”
“I will let you guys know in the next day or two.”
Keefe, who denies charges despite making multiple confessions for being the kill shot caller, faces life imprisonment if he is convicted of the murder of Tupac on September 7, 1996.
Keefe’s outburst comes just five days after prosecutors filed a bombshell 179-page court motion urging for bail denial, outlining new details in their evidence.
The former crime boss reportedly blames Kading for his legal problems in recent years despite giving multiple media interviews and writing a memoir about his key role in killing Tupac.
In 2020, before Keefe was arrested and charged, Kading told The U.S Sun: “I cannot think of any case in American crime history where a confessing murderer is allowed to continue and go speak blatantly about his involvement in a crime. It is unprecedented.
“I have no vendetta against him, but he has spoken publicly now about his role in Tupac’s murder. He has admitted he got the Glock hand gun for Anderson. His confession, which has been corroborated, is more than enough to arrest him and resolve the case and end it from being an unresolved investigation.
“He is profiting from his infamy.”
Since his summer 2023 arrest, prosecutors have pushed for Keefe to remain behind bars before his trial suggesting he remains “a danger to the community” and alleged he’d discussed having a potential witness killed.
The state described Keefe as having a “reputation as a brutal gang leader, prior record, the nature of the offense, and the danger represented to the community” as reasons for issuing a detention order.
The one-time drug kingpin of Compton even worked with LA officers to set up an undercover drug deal in a bid to implicate hip hop mogul Diddy in the rapper’s murder, damning court filings allege.
The court motion presented testimony Keefe worked undercover with a special LAPD task force initially set up to investigate the murder of Biggie Smalls after volunteering information about his role in Pac’s fatal shooting.
His role as an informant was so significant that he flew to New York in an attempt to implicate others in the Tupac murder.
During a recorded interview with officers, David had alleged that Diddy – real name Sean Combs – offered him a million dollars for Tupac’s murder.
Diddy has always denied any involvement in the killing.
DiGiacomo and Palal wrote that Keefe “became an active Confidential Informant for the Task Force”, alleging he flew with officers to New York to “corroborate the conspiracy” to commit Tupac’s murder in 2009.
It explains that detectives “believed they had jurisdiction to investigate a Nevada homicide because Defendant [Keefe] asserted that the conspiracy to commit the murder began in California between Defendant, Eric ‘Zip’ Martin, and Sean Combs.”
Diddy, has spent three decades refuting links to Tupac’s killing, appears to be further implicated in the court papers when prosecutors summarize one of Keefe’s other interviews, and state:
“Sean Combs reaches out to Defendant wondering if South Side Crips were responsible for Shakur’s death by asking, ‘Is that us?’
“Defendant, beaming with pride, answers, ‘Yes.'”
