Diddy: Times story defamatory
2008-03-28 15:46
Los Angeles - A lawyer for Sean
"Diddy" Combs lashed out at the Los Angeles Times on Thursday
over the "defamatory nature" of a story the paper published
that sought to link the rap music mogul to an assault on Tupac
Shakur.
The story, which first appeared on March 17, was later said
to be based on forged FBI documents.
Late on Wednesday, the paper
and Times reporter Chuck Philips apologised for the story, and
Philips said he now believes the papers are fake.
The "apology is, at best, a first step, but it doesn't undo
the false and defamatory nature of the story, or the suspicion
and innuendo that Mr Combs has had to endure due to these
untruthful allegations and the irresponsible conduct of this
particular reporter," Combs' attorney Howard Weitzman said in a
statement.
The Times story cited previously undisclosed FBI documents,
an unnamed informant interviewed for those documents, and
Philips' own sources as saying Combs knew of plans to assault
Shakur at the Quad Recording Studios in New York City in 1994.
Drive-by shooting
The attack left rising rap star Shakur with five gunshot
wounds and ignited a widely reported feud between East Coast
and West Coast rappers.
In 1996, Shakur was killed in a drive-by shooting in Las
Vegas.
Six months later, one of Combs' recording artists on his
Bad Boy Records label, the Notorious B.I.G. (Christopher
Wallace), was gunned down in Los Angeles.
Neither the two murders nor the 1994 assault were solved,
and there has been much speculation about who was responsible.
On Wednesday, The Smoking Gun website published an
extensive story on its website, thesmokinggun.com, that said
it believed the documents used by the Times were forgeries made
by a man who is now in prison for wire fraud and racketeering.
The Smoking Gun, which specialises in uncovering news from
court documents and legal records, cited inconsistencies in the
documents and said they could not be found on FBI computers.
Fake documents
"In relying on documents that I now believe were fake, I
failed to do my job," Philips said in a statement. "I'm
sorry."
Times' editor Russ Stanton said the paper has launched an
internal investigation into the matter.
Jimmy Rosemond, chief executive officer of Czar
Entertainment, also was linked to the attack by the Times.
His
attorney issued a statement on Thursday saying they were
gratified the LA Times acknowledged its error but added, "their
apology does not go far enough."
"(Philips's) actions were done with reckless disregard for
the truth and for that the LA Times will be held responsible,"
attorney Jeffrey Lichtman said.