Suge Knight Sentenced to 28 Years After Reaching a Plea Deal for Running Over and Killing a Man
Marion “Suge” Knight has been sentenced to 28 years in state prison on Thursday, PEOPLE confirms.
In a Los Angeles courthouse on Sept. 20, the rapper, 53, pleaded no contest to voluntary manslaughter in the January 2015 hit-and-run incident during which a vehicle he was riding in struck two pedestrians, including witness Cle “Bone” Sloan, in Compton, California, killing 55-year-old Terry Carter.
The plea deal calls for the former Death Row Records exec to serve 22 years in prison on the voluntary manslaughter count, five years because it is a third strike violation and one year for deadly weapon allegations, PEOPLE confirms.
By entering his plea, Knight resolves two other pending criminal cases: Knight was indicted for making criminal threats in August 2014 and he was charged for allegedly stealing a camera from a woman in September 2014.
RELATED: See Suge Knight’s Many Run-Ins with the Law
Knight, who was arrested and charged with murder, attempted murder and hit-and-run in January 2015, and his 16th appointed attorney, Albert DeBlanc, first contacted the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office about a possible plea deal on Wednesday, according to Terry’s widow Lillian Carter as reported by the Los Angeles Times.
The plea came just days before jury selection was scheduled to begin in the long-delayed case that was to start on Oct. 1. Knight originally faced life without the possibility of parole if convicted.
DeBlanc did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.
WATCH: Suge Knight Charged With Murder And Attempted Murder
“I’m surprised he pleaded out. Normally he likes the cameras to be on him 24/7,” grieving daughter Crystal Carter said outside court, according to the Associated Press.
The Jan. 29, 2015, incident during which Crystal’s father was killed occurred following an argument on the set of a commercial for the film Straight Outta Compton, which tells the story of the group N.W.A., featuring Ice Cube, Dr. Dre and the late Eazy-E.
At the time, Knight claimed he was attempting to flee to safety after being attacked by two crew members. While awaiting trial for the 2015 hit-and-run, he was also accused of threatening Straight Outta Compton director F. Gary Gray.
This is not the first time Knight has faced criminal charges.
In 1992, Knight was charged with two counts of assault with a deadly weapon. He pleaded no contest in 1995 and was sentenced to five years probation.
Then in February 1997, Knight was sentenced to nine years in prison for violating terms of his probation when he took part in a fight at a Las Vegas hotel hours before Tupac Shakur was wounded in a drive-by attack. Shakur was taken to University Medical Center in Las Vegas where he died on Sept. 13, 1996, at age 25.
