30 years later, the gang leader was found guilty of killing rapper, Tupac

Duane “Keffe D” Davis, a former Los Angeles gang leader, was found guilty Monday by a Las Vegas court of murdering top rapper Tupac Shakur in 1996.

Thirty years after the rap legend’s death, a jury found Davis, 63, guilty of murder after just hours of deliberation.

“Count one, murder with use of a deadly weapon, guilty of first degree murder with use of a deadly weapon,” the jury foreman told the court.

Davis, who faces a possible sentence of life in prison without parole, spoke to Judge Carli Kierny after the verdict was announced and expressed his intention to appeal.

The former leader of the South Side Compton Crips was accused of ordering the hip-hop artist’s murder on September 7, 1996 after his own nephew was beaten by members of Shakur’s entourage at a Las Vegas casino.

“Duane Davis, in his gang culture, couldn’t let that happen,” prosecutor Binu Palal said during closing arguments. “So what did he do? He obtained a firearm, gathered his group, and went hunting for Mr. Shakur.”

Shakur, who was in Las Vegas for Mike Tyson’s heavyweight fight, was shot about two hours after the casino confrontation by a gunman in a white Cadillac stopped at a red light next to the BMW in which the rapper was riding in the front passenger seat.

According to prosecutors, Davis handed the gun to someone sitting in the back seat of the Cadillac and ordered the person to shoot Shakur, who died six days later.

Davis was the only person in the Cadillac that night still alive.

The driver of the BMW, Death Row Records co-founder Marion “Suge” Knight, was injured.

Davis, whose Crips were one of the rival gangs that controlled parts of Los Angeles in the 1990s, is the only person charged in connection with Shakur’s shooting.

Sentencing is scheduled for Oct. 13.