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LA prosecutors decline to charge Suge Knight in alleged assault case
Ex-rap music mogul Marion "Suge" Knight was arrested Thursday after he allegedly pointed a gun at a man and then drove off in his Cadillac, police said.
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Los Angeles County prosecutors declined today to file charges against gangsta rap mogul Marion "Suge'' Knight, who was arrested last month for allegedly pointing a gun at a man in Gardena.
District attorney's spokeswoman Jane Robison said the case was sent back to police for further investigation.
Knight, 45, was pulled over in a white Cadillac Escalade on Crenshaw Boulevard near 147th Street in Gardena about 12:30 a.m. May 20 and booked on suspicion of felony assault with a deadly weapon and driving on a suspended license.
He was freed after posting $65,000 bail.
A Los Angeles Superior Court judge subsequently ordered Knight stay at least 100 yards from Elwood E. Chatman, his wife and his 12-year-old son.
Chatman alleged in his court papers that Knight told him "he was out (of prison) now and (was) going to take my life.''
He also claimed he had been assaulted and threatened twice before and has "an open case with LAPD for an assault'' that allegedly occurred April 4.
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He did not state in his court papers if Knight was his alleged assailant on the previous occasions.
Knight co-founded Death Row Records, which in its heyday in the early 1990s was generating revenues of about $100 million per year.
He helped launch some of rap's biggest acts, including Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg and Tupac Shakur, and was with Shakur the night he was slain in 1996.
Knight served five years in prison for assault and federal weapons violations and, after his release in 2001, spent another 10 months behind bars for violating parole by hitting a Hollywood nightclub valet.
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