Dennis Zine Friday asked his City Council colleagues to approve a $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Notorious B.I.G. killer. The City Council agreed last week to pay a $1.1 million penalty levied by a judge over errors in the case of the murdered rapper, whose real name was Christopher Wallace. The city's lawyers had told the council that the city likely would have lost any appeals in the matter.


"The Christopher Wallace case was, and continues to be, a high-profile case in the city of Los Angeles," Zine said. "I am hopeful someone will come forward with information which will lead to the eventual apprehension of the murderers involved in this case."

Wallace was fatally shot on March 9, 1997, after a party at the Peterson Automotive Museum in the Wilshire District. In January, U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper sanctioned the city after finding that a Los Angeles police detective withheld documents that were pertinent to the case. Wallace's family contends Death Row Records mogul Marion "Suge" Knight ordered the killing, and that it was carried out by rogue LAPD officers.



Cooper declared a mistrial in the case last July. The sanction she ordered represents the legal fees and other costs incurred by the family's attorneys before the mistrial was declared. Problems in the case arose when an LAPD homicide detective inadvertently failed to turn over to the family's lawyers the transcript of an interview with an informant, according to LAPD officials. The informant, a former cellmate of disgraced ex-Officer Rafael Perez, claimed in the 2000 interview that Perez and his former partner, David Mack, moonlighted for Death Row Records. An internal investigation into the detective's actions is under way, police said.

Attorneys representing Wallace's family and city lawyers are scheduled to appear in federal court again on April 26 to set dates for discovery motions and possibly establish a new trial date for the family's wrongful death lawsuit.



Source: CBS2.com