News of July 13, 2002
Tax Authority Demands Six Million Dollars from Suge Knight
In July 2002, the US tax agency IRS sent Suge Knight a demand for back taxes of six million dollars for 1997. His lawyer announced that he would pay.
Just under a year after his release, prison time catches up with Suge Knight in another way. As AllHipHop reported on July 13, 2002, the US tax agency IRS demanded around six million dollars in income tax from him. It concerned taxes from the year 1997 that had accumulated while Knight was incarcerated at Mule Creek State Prison in Ione (California).
The Incarceration and the Night in Las Vegas
There, he had served a nine-year sentence for probation violation. The trigger was the fight with Orlando Anderson in Las Vegas, on the night Tupac was shot (more on the release).
Tax Trouble Around Death Row
The demand did not come out of the blue. Knight’s former lawyer David Kenner had shortly before been sentenced to three years of probation after admitting to having concealed more than four million dollars in income from the tax authorities. Death Row itself had pleaded guilty in January to lesser counts in a tax case. Knight’s lawyer Arthur Barens told the Los Angeles Times that the demand was a surprise and needed to be reviewed first: “He plans to pay it.”