Tupac: Why This Lawsuit Changes Everything

0:00All right, let's, let's kick it old school now, everybody. Almost 30 years. This is who wants to feel old today. 30 years coming this September, since Tupac was gunned down cobalt and Flamingo in Las Vegas. And let's be honest, Eric, have you, have you been to Vegas and driven by cobalt and Flamingo and gone, oh, that's where it is. I think every time I'm in Vegas, I'm like, hey, there it is. It's like inevitably the drive from the airport takes you by it. Yeah, I was out there a couple of weeks ago and I'm pretty sure we'd be rolled right through it. I think I've shown my daughter this spot like five times now in life. It's like, hey, there, like, thanks dad. I already know that's where Tupac was shot. Anyway, his family just made the most aggressive legal move. This case is ever seen. A wrongful death civil lawsuit that names Keefy D and up to 100 unnamed John Doe

1:08co conspirators, co co conspirators, the family believes helped plan finance and carry out the murder, but the lawsuit is not just about accountability here. It's about discovery. The discovery machine built to force testimony that documents out of people who have never been compelled to answer a single question under oath with Keefy D's criminal trial set for August and the civil case now running on a parallel track, the legal battlefield around this case just doubled in size and the implications for everyone connected to it. Are enormous joining me to discuss Robin Drake retired FBI special agency for the counter intelligence behavioral analysis program and attorney Eric Fattest former prosecutor and defense attorney Eric the Shakur family. What's left of it? Filed this as a wrongful death suit. The brother of Tupac did this, but they lined up to 100 unnamed co conspirators.

2:09Undose alongside Keefy D. Let's help everybody understand this. When a family goes this route, they hired the firm Quinn Emmanuel behind them. It feels less like a lawsuit and more like a private investigation with subpoena power. What does this tell you about what the family is actually expecting to try and get to the bottom of through discovery? Totally. So one thing it tells me Tony is their objective probably is not money because there is little to no collectibility likelihood on a wrongful death case like this. Keefy D's already in jail. I don't know if any significant assets that he has and these unnamed folks, you can't get money from an unnamed person. And even if you do name them, trying to attach personal assets in a wrongful death case is so cumbersome and futile for the most part. So my apprehension is that their objective is something else. It's truth finding. As you mentioned, when this discovery process proceeds on the civil case, they'll be able to subpoena folks

3:12for depositions where they have to sit under oath and be peppered with questions about the event and any potential involvement. And so it seems like their objective here might be truth instead of money, which is a little bit of a refresher. How deep in the truth barrel can they go? I guess when you're naming just John Doe's in a civil case and then you want to depose people. You can't just, I guess, maybe you can. I don't know. Just willy-nilly throw names out there. I want to talk to this person. You were around at that time. Diddy, I want to talk to you. Corrupt, I want to talk to you. Just name all these people that were around two pocket the moment of his death. Some that have been implicated before. Some who were just on the same record label, if you will. What is the truth-finding mission and how much power does that that do they hold in terms of subpoenaing people and getting people in for depositions? Can by filing this, can they

4:14get diddy in for a deposition? Because that seems to be where a lot of roads keep leaning. I'm not saying anything to do with the murder of two pocket, but obviously there's a lot of questions there and a lot of people that want to get him in to find out what he knew on the record of this case. At that time and today, can they get there with this? You know, I think they can certainly try and it would, I would not be surprised to see diddy asked to sit for a deposition, but in this context, especially with the parallel criminal case and the specter of possible criminal consequences, that could allow deponence to invoke their fifth amendment rights and to not provide information during a deposition or written discovery or something else, you know, as opposed like a car accident case where you can you can subpoena in the driver and then their passenger or whatever and they're not going to invoke the fifth in that context, but in this context where they could be faced with a murder charge if they

5:14incriminate themselves in some fashion, that could be a barrier to finding truth here. That being the latitude that civil litigants have in the discovery process is pretty broad. It's not the same as a trial where there are all these rules like it has to be relevant and it has to be authentic and it can't be hearsay, things like that. Those rules are stored during the discovery process, so broad latitude for these folks, but also some potential legal barriers. Yeah, I mean, they're spending a lot of time, money and resources for the only thing we can guess at is from what you're saying is some truth and transparency. What other potential gains could they get out of this? You know, Robin, if they, so like I said, there's no reasonable likelihood of collectability on any sort of damages for KVD in my opinion, but you know, sometimes through the discovery process, you learn about the involvement of other folks. You learn about the

6:15potential civil responsibility of other folks, like folks who have money, folks who still have assets, folks who are, you know, successful entertainers. And so perhaps they're saying, hey, let's start with KVD and let's, and the people around him, let's build our knowledge base, let's see if we can develop any ties through this discovery process by which we can potentially add more defendants. That's why they included up to 100 John Does is because they want to replace those John Does with actual names, potentially, of folks who have money. So basically it's an expensive fishing expedition. That's certainly how defense would characterize it on that. And perhaps you're not too far off. Do we see that, is that kind of common in doing these types of civil suits after such a long time is elapsed? It's not terribly common because there's not a ton of incentive for the attorneys, usually on such a civil suit, the attorney would get paid from a percentage of any settlement or

7:16verdict. But if there is no reasonable likelihood of the financial recovery, how are these attorneys being paid through fame, through name recognition, I suppose, but that's a shift on a work to do over the course of what could be years. How much latitude does Diddy have to say, I'm not coming in for this. Can't nobody hold me down? I'll be missing you. You guys have fun over there. What kind of latitude does he have to not show up for a deposition? And what sort of legal repercussions could exist if he just says no? I got enough problems. I don't even more money or more problems. I don't need to go for this deposition. I'm a bad boy for life. Go shake a tail feather. What do I think I worked in about Tony's radio background shines through every day. I nailed about seven Diddy songs in that question. On purpose. Yeah, but what's

8:18sort of latitude does he have? Well played. So he can't just outright refuse without any sort of legal response if he is properly served with documents requiring his attendance at a deposition. However, he can file a motion to quash, like I said, if he was subpoenaed for this deposition, he can file a motion to quash saying, hey, I'm just going to invoke my Fifth Amendment right anyway. This is a meaningless procedure. And court don't make me come do this. But they can't just say come with me. How many more of these you got? He only had so many hits songs. He was usually on, he was usually somebody else's backing vocal. Right. He needs a girl to ride, ride, ride. You know, right. You know, what comes to mind to though is the plaintiff could potentially submit written

9:20discovery to could they submit it to a non party? It depends on on the jurisdiction, but they might be able to submit written questions to Diddy that he asked to answer under. And you can only invoke your Fifth Amendment right. If you have a reasonable belief that the response could be incriminating. And so if they're just asking him if they phrase the questions in such a way that could not elicit a criminal response, but instead just trying to obtain knowledge about what happened about people, you know, who do you know and who might have been there, things like that. He might not be able to validly invoke his Fifth. It gets pretty complicated, but I don't think he can just say no screw you guys. I'm invoking the Fifth and I'm never going to have any involvement. I think it's going to be more nuanced than that from what you're seeing. Does this look like a very complex way in order to try to get at Diddy? Very well could be especially with, you know, some of the documentaries that have come out recently and 50 cent did his and it was

10:22pretty unfavorable for Diddy to say the least. And they've got to find somebody with deep pockets. I don't know if you know, it seems like Diddy might still have some significant assets just based on what's publicly available. And if they were able to tie him in, that could bring back sort of the financial element of this civil wrongful debt to make it worthwhile for the attorneys and for the litigants as well. So if they could bring him in, certainly would be a huge win for the point. He's not named in the suit right now, but that's where the the window is open with the 100 John Does. Is the window into this, you know, going after key fee D, that gets the lawsuit going, you can end up naming more defendants as you go on as the John Does, if you so choose at some point in time. I'm wondering if that's the vehicle that's trying to to get them there. And then I wonder if maybe there is a financial motive for it at some point

11:24or truth or just both or one or the other. I don't know, but but it seems to get a kind of step on some lily pads to get to the other side of the pond. If Diddy is there, but at the end of the day, if if there was evidence to convict Diddy or to connect him to the death of Tupac, wouldn't we have probably seen it by now? If there's any, and this is 30 years ago, so the digital trail, all that stuff, it's gone. There's not really anything to find. It feels like all that's really left would be if Diddy self incriminated himself. And all he has to do is shut up or just or say he doesn't remember. And if that's the only thing that can get him, that might be the only thing that could still get him, right? Potentially, but one thing that also comes to mind, though, is, you know, let's say that there is an associate, let's just say hypothetically, I'm not saying Diddy did this, but let's go for a hypothetical that he did do this. And through the wrongful death lawsuit, they identify some associate of Diddy and they loop that person in

12:26and they scare the hell out of that person. They say, hey, you're going to be liable for millions of dollars. You might go to jail. This could turn into a criminal thing for you. Are you sure there's not more info you want to tell us about Diddy? And then perhaps that person's like, whoa, hey, dude, like I don't need my life screwed up forever. Diddy did this. And let me tell you how and let me tell you about these conversations. Let me tell you about these events. Let me tell you about things like that. Now that would not be, you know, sacrosanct evidence, certainly could be challengeable, but there are ways to get to Diddy that are sort of peripheral to Diddy. Yeah, it's really interesting, too, because Diddy's still behind bars, correct, right? Yeah, but I heard rumors. I thought we heard he might be getting out early, good behavior, sound like that, but I don't know. It kind of changes by the week. Yeah, but what's really interesting about that, Eric, and this is because like, again, you got to look at the motivations, the intent of what people are doing of what they think's in their best interest. So these attorneys think it's in their best interest to do this. And so like you're saying, there's got to be some

13:28sort of payoff that they're taking the gamble on. And the fact that, you know, a lot of Diddy's circle would remain the very loyal to him, even to the very end, but now that that end has happened is behind bars, I'm curious with you as well. Now that he is actually behind bars or period of time, I wonder how that has influenced his network around him or not. And they might be able to take a separate run at these people from the other side. And the fear factor might be higher in them now than before. It's, you know, from prosecution and such. It's a really interesting, it's really, really interesting to kind of think about that. That there's probably such animosity against Diddy from this camp that even so they could even say in their minds, you know, we might not getting monetary gain out of this. We might not be able to loop him in, but even the thought of being able to keep him stumped down from this other camp might be enough to motivate them. Could be. And you know, Robin, if there were, let's just say hypothetically, Diddy had some involvement. I'm not saying that he did, but hypothetically, did. And there were some associates who

14:34knew about this. Their fear of this thing ramping up and getting in trouble civilly or criminally is probably increased. And their fear of Diddy, who's behind bars, is probably decreased. That certainly has reached from the inside, but he's, but that that reaches lessen and his resources have lessen, his reputation has lessen. And so perhaps there are folks with information who might be more inclined now to come out and give that then they would, you know, five years ago when he was having his parties and freaking off. I wonder, I wonder about that. Like how much has the field cleared up that that pulled the fear factor of Diddy down where, where it used to just be, well, I'm not going to talk about this because I don't want to have the repercussions from Diddy's goons. Again, I'm not saying he did it all hypothetical, but from, from Diddy's goons coming at me because obviously we've heard the other stories, kid, kid Cutty, all of this, you know, firebombing the cars, things of that nature, those allegations. It seems, you know, he had a propensity allegedly maybe in some people's opinions to bring repercussions to people who crossed him.

15:38But if that's no longer a factor and you're caught in the middle and you have knowledge about something theoretically, you got him, you're having to weigh then, oh, I might, you know, owe a lot of money if I don't say something here I might face some sort of criminal charge or face the wrath of Diddy. Well, you know, the weight is a little bit shifted these days and it's not what it used to be. So I wonder how much that could influence where this might go. But the only thing I'm going to bring up Mark Fry in our comments always makes me laugh. And if they are successful, if for some chance getting all hypothetical, Diddy gets wrapped into this the only way he'll be able to provide compensations with baby oil. There we go, big shipment of baby oil to the law firm. Congratulations. Here's what you get. Uh, yeah. What am I going to do with that? It's not up in Etsy store, you know, the leftover Diddy baby oil. Diddy's oil.

16:39Oh my god. Uh, that's what happens. Well, money, no problems. That's what you end up doing. All right. Your thoughts on the comment section on substacking YouTube. We'd love for you to weigh in. The links are in the description. Eric Fattis. Thank you so much for being here. Robin Drake's latest book. It's out. It's not all about me. It's available wherever you get books. Go and buy it right now. You will. You shall. It's great. You'll love it. It's do it now. Okay. And buy it for someone in your life. You think needs to hear that message. Exactly. Buy it for someone in prison. Jim Bob, buy it for, get to in your prison. No, I, well, one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, two for one. Maybe they could share it. Like, you know, you could like move it or anyway. Anyway, until next time for everyone, I'm Tony Bruceke. We'll talk again, Wilson.