Prosecutors could reportedly take action against the music mogul if the man on trial for allegedly orchestrating the 1996 killing is convicted
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs could face criminal charges linked to the killing of rapper Tupac Shakur in Las Vegas 30 years ago, The Telegraph has reported, citing sources. According to the outlet, prosecutors could take action if the man currently on trial over the murder is convicted.
Combs, who rose to become one of the most powerful figures in US hip-hop as a rapper and producer, is currently serving a 50-month federal prison sentence after being convicted in 2025 on two counts of transporting people for prostitution.
On September 7, 1996, Shakur was shot four times while stopped at a red light in a car with record executive Suge Knight. The 25-year-old died six days later, while Knight survived. His death soon became one of the most infamous unsolved murders in US popular culture.
Tupac Shakur (left) and music executive Marion ‘Suge’ Knight pictured outside Club 662, Las Vegas, Nevada, circa 1996. © Nitro/Getty Images The cold case was revived after Duane ‘Keffe D’ Davis, a former senior figure in the South Side Compton Crips street gang, began publicly discussing his involvement in 2018 and 2019, eventually leading to his arrest in 2023. Members of the gang are believed to have provided protection to Combs in Los Angeles.
Davis, now on trial for allegedly orchestrating the shooting, had previously claimed that Combs offered $1 million for Shakur and Knight to be killed amid an increasingly violent rivalry between Combs’s Bad Boy Records and Knight’s Death Row Records, which represented Shakur.
Duane Davis appears in Clark County District Court during a motion hearing for his upcoming trial on August 04, 2026 in Las Vegas, Nevada. © Getty Images / Ethan Miller
Combs has denied any involvement, calling the allegations pure fiction and completely ridiculous. Davis now insists his previous accounts of the killing were fabricated for money and notoriety.
The Telegraph did not specify what charges Combs could face but said a Davis conviction could lend credibility to the latter’s claim regarding the $1 million offer.
The door remains open on what charges could be made against Diddy. But if the jury convicts Davis, then it gives a green light to take action against Diddy, the outlet quoted a Clark County district attorney’s office source as saying.
The newspaper said prosecutors have kept Combs’s alleged role out of the trial to avoid confusing the jury and have not confirmed whether they would pursue him.
Davis was allegedly one of the four men in the Cadillac from which the fatal shots were fired and is the only one still alive.
Prosecutors believe the man’s nephew, Orlando ‘Baby Lane’ Anderson, fired the shots in retaliation for being beaten by Shakur and his entourage earlier that night. However, he was never charged and was killed in an unrelated gang shooting in 1998.
Under Nevada accomplice liability, Davis can be prosecuted for murder even if he did not pull the trigger. He has pleaded not guilty to one count of murder with a deadly weapon with intent to promote, further or assist a criminal gang.
