Former gang leader Duane “Keffe D” Davis has been sentenced to 40 years in prison for orchestrating the murder of rapper Tupac Shakur.
A jury found Davis guilty of murdering the rapper in a shooting in Las Vegas on September 7, 1996.
He has said he will appeal the verdict.
The 63-year-old former gang leader’s sentencing marks the first conviction in a cold case that has fascinated hip-hop fans for nearly 30 years, the BBC reports.
Prosecutors argued that although Davis did not pull the trigger himself, he was the leader of the group responsible for the killing. In his memoir, he admitted to supplying the weapon used in the crime.
Key evidence in the case included Davis’s own statements, in which he repeatedly and publicly acknowledged that he was inside the white Cadillac from which the fatal shots were fired.
In exchange for protection from prosecution, he had informed authorities about his role in Shakur’s death during a secret police interview in 2008 concerning the killing of fellow rapper The Notorious B.I.G., whose real name was Christopher Wallace. Wallace was murdered in a shooting just a few months after Shakur.
