Rap mogul Marion “Suge” Knight was arrested after police found marijuana in his truck during a traffic stop about 100 miles east of Los Angeles, police said Sunday.
Knight was arrested Saturday evening after the 39-year-old producer made an illegal U-turn in the city of Barstow, the local police department said in a statement. They said the marijuana was found in his truck.
Knight was being held by sheriff’s deputies on suspicion of a parole violation, pending his return to a state prison next week, police said. He was also cited for not having proof of insurance in his black Ford truck. A police spokesman reached by telephone Sunday declined to provide further details.
A woman riding in the vehicle with Knight, Alexis Wilkenson, 18, of Las Vegas, was also arrested for having a fake ID and providing false information to a law enforcement officer, police said. Wilkenson was later released.
Knight’s publicists were not immediately available for comment on Sunday.
Lengthy legal troubles
Knight co-founded Death Row Records, which generated revenues of about $100 million a year in the early 1990s. Many of the label’s top acts later defected to competitors. In 1996, Knight was sentenced to five years in prison for violating probation he received for assault and weapons convictions in 1992.
Two years after his 2001 release, Knight spent an additional 10 months in prison for violating his parole and punching a Hollywood nightclub valet. He was released in April. Prior to his latest arrest Knight said he had plans to produce a hip-hop album to benefit financially troubled families of soldiers in Iraq.
He still faces a federal probe into the 1997 murder of rapper Christopher Wallace, known as Notorious B.I.G. or Biggie Smalls. Wallace’s murder followed the shooting death of legendary gangsta rapper Tupac Shakur, who was shot dead in Las Vegas while riding in a car driven by Knight in September 1996.