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Suge Knight lawyer returns to legal team following arrest

By Andy Malt | Published on Friday 2 February 2018

One time hip hop mogul Suge Knight has confirmed a key lawyer will remain on his legal team, despite the attorney’s recent arrest on suspicion of being an “accessory after the fact”.

Thaddeus Culpepper and Matthew Fletcher, another lawyer who previously worked for Knight, were both arrested last month. However they were later released without charge “pending an evaluation into the complexities of the case”, said the LA County Sheriff’s Department in a statement.

The arrests followed previous allegations of misconduct against Knight’s legal reps, which they were possibly linked to.

Last August Fletcher was accused by prosecutors of tampering with witnesses in his client’s ongoing murder case. Court papers claimed to have transcripts of his and Knight discussing fabricating evidence and paying off witnesses.

Meanwhile, Culpepper was accused of agreeing to pay an informant in exchange for “his sworn testimony that he was present at the time of the crime and [witnessed] evidence favourable to the defence”.

Culpepper says that he was never actually told why he was arrested recently and that doesn’t expect any charges to be filed. Clearly he has convinced Knight of this, because he has waived his right to have a lawyer free of any potential conflicts of interest, in order to keep Culpepper on his team.

“What they were charging me with is impossible”, says Culpepper. “I’m charged with defending my client as to this murder and they’re charging me with accessory to murder after the fact based on a false confidential informant sham kind of programme”.

Meanwhile, Knight said: “I’m not Donald Trump, but [these allegations are] fake news”.

Knight is facing murder charges in relation to the death in 2015 of a man called Terry Carter, following an incident that occurred near the set of the NWA biopic ‘Straight Outta Compton’, which was then in production.