Rap Label’s Head Ordered to Jail Pending Hearing

Marion “Suge” Knight was dispatched to jail Tuesday by a judge who said the co-founder of Death Row Records had run out of excuses after missing drug tests and other conditions of probation stemming from a 1992 assault on two aspiring rappers.

After reciting a lengthy list of Knight’s failures to make appointments for drug tests and even court appearances, Superior Court Judge John Ouderkirk ordered him to custody pending a bail hearing next Monday.

During the 1992 assault, Ouderkirk noted, Knight had pointed a gun at one of the rappers and said: “When I say do something, you do it.”

“Apparently, Mr. Knight likes to make those rules,” Ouderkirk went on. “He doesn’t like to follow those rules.” The judge said he had previously given Knight the benefit of the doubt many times but would now be embarrassed to allow Knight to remain free on bail.

Knight promptly stood up, took his credit cards and cash out of a pocket in his brown, pinstriped, three-piece suit, removed his belt and tie, gave the bundle to attorney David Kenner and walked into the courthouse lockup.

Before the hearing, when asked in a hallway outside the courtroom how he felt, Knight said: “It’s in God’s hands.”

Afterward, Kenner said: “I thought what happened this morning in court was inappropriate. Mr. Knight came back to court as he was requested to do. He came back to test as he was requested to do.

“The Probation Department’s reports to the court in the last several weeks recommended that he be continued on probation, not that he be remanded to custody. We have a hearing coming up,” on Nov. 15, regarding allegations that Knight tested positive for marijuana use. “There is no evidence taken or violation found to exist, yet we have a man in custody. It’s wrong.”

Knight founded Death Row in 1992 with gangsta rap star Dr. Dre, whose real name is Andre Young.

The company became the first rap label to consistently dominate the pop charts. Meanwhile, its stars and executives have been associated with violence--among them rappers Snoop Doggy Dog, whose real name is Calvin Broadus and who was acquitted of murder earlier this year, and Tupac Shakur, gunned down Sept. 7 in Las Vegas in a car driven by Knight.

In the state case before Ouderkirk, Knight received a suspended prison sentence of nine years and five years probation after pleading no contest last year to two counts of assault. He also was sentenced to six months house arrest and 30 days in a halfway house.

Among the terms of probation were that Knight be tested for drugs and notify a probation officer before leaving the country.

Knight is also on three years probation in a weapons case in federal court. A hearing is set for Nov. 25 in U.S. District Court on allegations that he violated that probation by testing positive this summer for marijuana use.

On Tuesday, Ouderkirk said that Knight had missed drug tests Oct. 16 and 18. The judge also noted that since 1993 Knight had missed his initial probation hearing and four court hearings.

Kenner attributed the missed drug tests on Oct. 16 and 18 to miscommunication and bad weather in the Bahamas that complicated flight schedules to Los Angeles. He said Knight had notified federal officials of his trip to the Bahamas, but not county probation authorities, believing he no longer was required to do so.

In ordering Knight to jail, the judge said: “Mr. Knight has run out of that string of excuses as far as this court is concerned.”