Tupac Isn't Dead, he's in Mexico

A March 17 article about the 1994 attack on Tupac that first appeared on The Los Angeles Times Web site, was partially based on fraudulent documents. The Smoking Gun Web site first broke the story. The Times article claimed that the attack on Tupac was perpetrated by associates of Sean Combes, a.k.a. Diddy, P-Diddy, Puff Daddy. The article used several anonymous sources and F.B.I. documents that were forged by an inmate named James Sabatino. According to The Smoking Gun Web site, Sabatino is an "accomplished document forger and an audacious swindler who has created a fantasy world in which he managed hip-hop luminaries." Why reporter Chuck Philips would use this person as a source is beside me.

The F.B.I. documents sourced in the article were found to be fabricated because they contained numerous spelling errors and acronyms that the F.B.I. doesn't even use. To make matters worse, the documents were written by typewriter which the F.B.I. hasn't used to create documents in 30 years. None of these documents could be found on the F.B.I.'s database. These documents were connected back to Sabatino because when compared with other court documents created by Sabatino while in prison, there were similarities in spelling and grammar mistakes.
The L.A. Times running this story has resulted in them having to print a retraction and for the two responsible for the story, Chuck Philips and his deputy managing editor Marc Duvoisin, to apologize. Another result is the embarassment this must have caused the rest of the L.A. Times staff.