For the former rap mogul Marion “Suge” Knight, it took only a dollar mount mentioning to make his head spin when he was hospitalized yet again, Friday, March 20th, after collapsing in his chair in a Los Angeles court, where a judge set at his bail to the amount of $25 million.
The 49 year old producer is involved in a case where he is charged with murder, attempted murder and a hit and run. “He was sweating a lot and bat his eyes before he collapsed to the ground, hit his head on a table and then lost consciousness,” said his lawyer after the hearing. The judge found that the sum of $25 million to be “reasonable,” adding that Knight could be sentenced to multiple life terms in prison if convicted.
This marks a trend, as Knight has already been hospitalized twice. The prosecutor Cynthia Barnes, who had requested the new amount, initially set at two million dollars, and said he was startled by his “significant history of violence, in this case and over the last thirty years.” The initial amount was revoked in early February due to a risk of flight and witness intimidation.
Suge Knight’s lawyer said after the hearing that this “absurd” amount at which bail is set was a “joke”, adding that his client was “probably one of the most recognizable people of Los Angeles” and that he had by therefore no risk of leakage.
Since his arrest in January, Suge Knight has been hospitalized twice, February 3rd and 19th, and has complained of medical problems since. In his last appearance, he had reported losing nearly 35 lbs., and the sight in one of his eyes. This latest incident, in any case, has earned him the conspicuous stare from bystanders and the ridicule from many viewers and readers around the web.
Suge Knight co-founded the rap label Death Row Records with Dr. Dre in the early 1990s, which launched including artists such as Snoop Dogg and Tupac Shakur. The label went bankrupt in 1996 when Knight was jailed for failing to comply with the conditions for early releases. This is just one blip in a long history with the law.
His reputation has been tarnished by rumors that he would not only behind the murder of Notorious BIG – Rapper killed in 1997 and notorious rival Shakur – but also of Shakur himself in 1996 in unexplained circumstances. Since then he has had numerous brushes with the law, including a ten-month imprisonment in 2003.
He survived several shootings, in particular in 2005 and in August 2014, when he was hit by several bullets at a party hosted by Chris Brown before the MTV Awards. He is now charged with hitting two men knocked by the wheel of his pickup late January, killing one of them, Terry Carter, 55, and wounding another, Cle Stone, 51 years. He pleaded not guilty.
He is also accused in another case of stealing the camera of a celebrity photographer in Los Angeles last fall. He pleaded not guilty but may, in this case, see up to thirty years in prison because of a previous conviction for assault with a weapon.