Death Row CEO Marion "Suge" Knight's lawyers filed a motion on Friday (February

7) in Los Angeles Superior Court that seeks to get his probation violation

finding thrown out based on new evidence they claim proves a Las Vegas police

detective lied under oath. According to the Los Angeles Times, an

article published in that paper last week and a September 25 police affidavit

recently obtained by Knight's lawyers apparently revealed new details about the

so-far-unsuccessful investigation into the September 7 shooting of Tupac

Shakur, which suggest that, contrary to testimony, police began focusing on

reputed L. A. gang member Orlando Anderson as a suspect within days of the

drive-by shooting

Knight's lawyers, seeking to save their client from a

possible nine-year jail sentence, contend that the judge's finding of a

probation violation is tied to the testimony of Las Vegas Police Detective

Brent Becker, who told the court that, following a gang sweep in Compton on

October 2 during which he was arrested, Anderson told him Knight was involved

in the altercation that occurred outside the MGM Grand on the night Shakur was

shot.

Knight's probation was revoked on November 26 for his alleged

participation in the assault. In court, Anderson later denied telling Becker

about Knight's involvement. Lawyers also contend that Becker testified that

when Anderson was picked up, Becker did not consider him a suspect in Shakur's

killing, but wanted to speak to him mainly about the altercation at the MGM.

But the Times reported that both Anderson's attorney and L.A. police

sources told the paper that Becker told Anderson in that October 2nd interview

that he was a suspect in Shakur's shooting. A Compton police affidavit prepared

to obtain search warrants for the gang sweep in which Anderson was arrested

also allegedly suggests that Compton and Las Vegas police had received tips

that Anderson was responsible for Shakur's shooting...

That affidavit, signed by Compton Police Det. Tim Brennan,

also allegedly contains the following information: Shakur's murder was the

result of gang rivalry between Death Row-affiliated members of the Mob Piru

Bloods and the Southside Crips, of which Anderson and several of his relatives

are allegedly members and that Shakur and his crew allegedly assaulted Anderson

because he allegedly stole a gold chain from one of the Death Row employees

during a gang scuffle last summer. The affidavit also contends that informants

told police Anderson was seen days after the shooting with a Glock .40-caliber

handgun (the same kind of weapon used in the homicide), that Anderson's cousin,

Jerry "Monk" Bonds, was seen driving a late-model white Cadillac into an auto

shop in Compton two days after the shooting and that, one week after the

shooting, Las Vegas detectives examined a box of .40-caliber rounds confiscated

by Compton police from a residence Bonds was living in.

Police have yet to

charge anyone with the murder of Tupac Shakur, and Las Vegas detectives have

said several times that they don't expect an arrest until witnesses to the

shooting step forward to identify possible suspects. Shakur's mother, Afeni

Shakur, has spoken out in recent weeks about what she has said was clear for

her from day one, that "the Las Vegas police never had any interest in solving

the case of my son's murder.