After derailing a partial settlement last week and claiming he wanted a full-blown trial, Suge Knight made another about-face Tuesday and agreed to a $1.5 million settlement in his wrongful death civil case.
The last-minute pact averted a retrial over claims filed by the wife and two daughters of Terry Carter, the Compton businessman who died on Jan. 29, 2015, when Knight mowed Carter down in the parking lot of a Los Angeles burger stand in an incident linked to the N.W.A biopic Straight Outta Compton.
Knight appeared by video from his prison in San Diego and agreed to the deal at a hearing in downtown Los Angeles. Carter’s widow Lillian and daughters Nekaya and Crystal sat at the plaintiffs’ table as their lawyer, Lance Behringer, said each woman was due to receive $500,000 under the terms of the agreement.
Before he gave his final approval, Knight asked the judge what would happen if he moved ahead with a jury trial without his longtime lawyer, David Kenner, representing him. Kenner spent the last few weeks trying to withdraw from the case, citing a conflict. During Tuesday’s hearing, Knight seemed to accept their relationship had completely broken down. Los Angeles County Judge Thomas Long said if Knight didn’t settle, jury selection would begin Thursday, even if Knight was left representing himself.
“There would be no further continuances. This case is out of time,” Judge Long said.
Speaking outside the courthouse after the afternoon hearing, Carter’s widow wiped tears remembering the husband she met in high school and knew for 40 years before Knight left him for dead in the parking lot of a Tam’s Burgers in Compton. “It’s hard living without him when I lived all those many years with him. It’s been very, very difficult,” Lillian says. “I’ve been in pain ever since January 29, 2015, I haven’t had a good day, not one good day.”
Lillian said the thought of sitting through another trial in the case, after a jury deadlocked at an initial trial in 2022, led her to accept the settlement. “I’m not happy with the outcome of it, at all, but I don’t want to give him another opportunity to put on a clown show and act like a bitch,” she says, asking Rolling Stone not to censor her comments. “Maybe somebody will shank him in jail.”
Carter’s daughters said they hope the settlement will allow them to focus their efforts elsewhere. “I’m glad it’s finally over. It’s been a long emotional and mental rollercoaster. We couldn’t put ourselves through it all again,” Nekaya says. “I want to move onward and upward, to get to work like my dad was always saying.”
On a recorded line from his prison, Knight told Rolling Stone that he regretted what happened at Tam’s, but he stood by his claim he was fleeing an armed ambush and struck Carter by accident.
“Terry was a friend of mine. It definitely wasn’t done intentionally. It wasn’t done to bring harm to him,” Knight says. “One of the reasons I settled [is] I got respect for Terry, so that means I’ve got respect for his family. … I didn’t want to put the family through more pain. It’s not that I did anything wrong. I never would have. But I do owe the family an apology because of this thing they had to go through.”
Knight, 60, is serving a 28-year prison term after taking a plea deal related to Carter’s death. Knight was initially charged with murder, but the count was dropped to voluntary manslaughter under the pact with prosecutors reached in 2018. The Carter family’s wrongful death lawsuit alleged that Knight “had a habit of breaking the law” and used his Ford F-150 Raptor truck to “carelessly, recklessly, violently, and negligently” kill Carter.
The deadly incident at the center of the criminal and civil cases unfolded shortly after Knight was turned away from a production office for Straight Outta Compton. Prosecutors claimed Knight went to the base camp because he was upset with his violent depiction in the film and lack of financial participation. During the first civil trial, Knight claimed he wasn’t upset and visited the base camp to request a meeting with Dr. Dre. (Dre was an original member of N.W.A and went on to co-found Death Row Records with Knight.) Knight testified that he wanted to tell Dre he was hearing from unidentified law enforcement that Dre put a murder-for-hire contract on his head. Knight said he didn’t believe Dre wanted him dead but wanted Dre to know what he allegedly was hearing. (Dre has denied the murder-for-hire claim through a lawyer).
An actor and self-described non-active gang member named Cle “Bone” Sloan was working as a technical advisor on Straight Outta Compton that day and got into a verbal altercation with Knight at the movie’s base camp, according to prosecutors and the civil lawsuit. Surveillance video from Tam’s shows that Sloan and Knight fought through Knight’s Raptor window at the burger joint parking lot a short time later. The video shows that Knight reversed the two-ton truck, knocking Sloan to the ground. Seconds later, Knight’s truck accelerated forward, running over both Sloan and Carter before Knight fled the scene, the video shows.
Sloan was rushed to a hospital with two crushed ankles and a serious head laceration. Carter died within the hour from blunt force injuries.
Kenner, 82, has been Knight’s lawyer for years, but he asked to be relieved from the civil retrial earlier this month after claiming he learned something “disturbing” during a recent phone call with Knight. He said after the call, he felt “anxious about being able to competently and energetically try this case.” Judge Long rejected Kenner’s request multiple times but signaled he was on the verge of granting the motion heading into Tuesday’s hearing.
“Now that Mr. Knight has chosen to resolve the case, I look forward to no further involvement,” Kenner tells Rolling Stone.
The Carter family’s lawyer declined to comment. Lillian thanked him as she departed the courthouse in downtown Los Angeles. “Lance worked very hard with the case. We’re very appreciative,” she says.
From Rolling Stone US
