Last week a bombshell was dropped on the hip-hop world when an article by Chuck Philips appeared in the LA Times citing an unidentified FBI informant who claimed that a mafia-connected figure named James Sabatino and Jimmy Henchman set up Tupac in 1994 to curry favor with Diddy’s then growing Bad Boy Records empire. Diddy and Jimmy Henchman vehemently denied those claims and demanded a retraction from the LA Times. And it looks like they’ve gotten it, by default. Yesterday, The Smoking Gun published a report about James Sabatino, indicating that he’s a reputed con-man, and the supposed FBI documents relied on for the Times article were forged. Today, the LA Times has admitted their guilt and issued an apology. Chuck Philips said in a statement Wednesday,
“In relying on documents that I now believe were fake, I failed to do my job. I’m sorry.”
Deputy Managing Editor Marc Duvoisin said: “We should not have let ourselves be fooled. That we were is as much my fault as Chuck’s. I deeply regret that we let our readers down.”
Times Editor Russ Stanton said an internal review of the forged FBI documents and the reporting of the story would be launched.
Stanton said: “We published this story with the sincere belief that the documents were genuine, but our good intentions are beside the point. The bottom line is that the documents we relied on should not have been used. We apologize both to our readers and to those referenced in the documents and, as a result, in the story. We are continuing to investigate this matter and will fulfill our journalistic responsibility for critical self-examination.”
Check out the FBI documents yourself and let us know what you think. Forged or not?
Go to MTV News for more on the story.
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