Former Death Row Records impresario Suge Knight has reached a $1.5 million settlement with the family of Terry Carter, that not-so-closing note in a long, painful story, though certainly not one of healing.
The two men, Suge Knight and Terry Carter had been blocked from boxing out the filming of 'Straight Outta Compton' when they got into the dispute that killed Carter in 2015 in front of a burger joint, proceeding to a retrial that was scheduled to start in Los Angeles. The 59-year-old Knight, who is serving a 28-year prison sentence after pleading no contest to voluntary manslaughter, listened to the agreement remotely from the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego. Under the deal, he'll shell out $500,000 each to Carter's widow, Lillian, and daughters, Nekaya and Crystal. However, the emotional wounds remain fresh because the case is closed, and Lillian Carter did not sugarcoat the result.
"I'm not happy about where it's going toward the outcome of it, at all," she said. "But I don't want to give him another chance to have a clown show on stage and to be a b####. Maybe someone will shank him in jail." Her language is raw, just like the pain she's been hauling around since that fateful day in January 2015.
"It's the most difficult part of my life now, living without him, having lived with him all those many years," she said. "It's been very, very hard. Since then, I've been in pain; I haven't... gone one day, not one single day without pain.
Knight's longtime lawyer, David Kenner, recently filed to be removed from the case because of a conflict of interest, ratcheting the legal drama to a boiling point. The judge, Thomas Long, laid it out in no uncertain terms, no more stalling.
"There will not be any further continuances. This case is out of time," Long said, cautioning Knight that he would have to represent himself the next time the trial resumed.
This pressure, perhaps a shred of conscience, caused Knight to settle. He maintains the deadly hit-and-run was not intentional.
"Terry was a friend of mine," Knight said in the hearing. "It wasn't something that was planned," he told… I didn't want to put the family through any more grief. It's not that I was doing anything wrong; I would never have. But I owe an apology to the family Apture so" and the death.
But the apology has fallen flat for many. The daughter, Nekaya, said she felt bittersweet relief. "I'm just glad it's over with. It's been a long and emotional road," she said. "We could not go through that again. I am ready to move on, just like my father preached."
Justice may be beyond the Carter family's grasp, but at least the chapter in the courtroom is closed. As for Suge Knight, he still languishes in jail, and a hip-hop Goliath has fallen in the shade of the decisions that led to this point.
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