B.I.G. Reward Back on the Table

09/24/2006 7:25 PM, E! Online


Biggie's case is all about the Benjamins again.

In light of the Los Angeles Police Department's recent decision to assign a new task force to investigate the circumstances surrounding the 1997 slaying of Notorious B.I.G. (aka Biggie Smalls), the Los Angeles City Council decided Friday to reinstate a $50,000 reward for anyone with information leading to the arrest and conviction of the party responsible for the killing.

Nearly 10 years after the Life After Death purveyor was gunned down, police have yet to solidly connect any suspect to the case, and the family of Biggie Smalls, whose real name was Christopher Wallace, is still pursuing its wrongful death lawsuit against the city of L.A., convinced that rogue LAPD officers had a hand in the rapper's death. Biggie's relatives first filed their complaint in 2002.

The six-man task force formed in July will continue to probe the alleged connection between Death Row Records mogul Marion "Suge" Knight and Biggie, whom it has been speculated was murdered in retaliation for the 1996 shooting death of Knight's hottest commodity, Tupac Shakur. The LAPD would also probably prefer that people don't go around thinking that a couple of shady L.A. cops had anything to do with the slaying.

Meanwhile, although Biggie's family won a $1.1 million payday from the city after a mistrial was declared in their wrongful death suit last summer, the judge who presided over the case has since granted a retrial, now scheduled to begin Feb. 27 after being postponed from its original October start date.

The family lost a motion last month, however, to expand its suit to include a claim that an LAPD officer was on duty at the site of the shooting (outside of L.A.'s Petersen Automotive Museum), with U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper ruling that there was "no admissible evidence that [Officer Rafael] Perez was on duty...at the scene of the murder."

The mistrial occurred after the family's attorney, Perry Sanders, told the court he had received an anonymous call telling him that the LAPD had knowledge of a jailhouse informant who knew about Perez and another officer's possible involvement in Biggie's killing. Judge Cooper put a halt to the trial and awarded the rapper's relatives $1.1 million, punishing the city for the alleged cover-up.

In May, lawyers representing the City of Angels presented Judge Cooper with a report written by a private investigator hired by the family who also had spoken to this same jailhouse informant. All of which implied that Sanders already knew what the so-called anonymous caller had to tell him.

Despite being really ticked off when this new evidence was placed in her hands, the judge eventually ruled that she figured Sanders was disinclined to believe the informant because there were no official police reports corroborating his credibility.

Therefore, game on.