L.A. Times Hoaxed into Diddy-Tupac Link

Apparently the Los Angeles Times should have Combed a little deeper before it reported on evidence contained in a batch of newly discovered FBI files that connected Sean "Diddy" Combs to a 1994 shooting assault on Tupac Shakur at a New York recording studio.

The newspaper issued an apology Wednesday, stating it had come to the realization that the documents on which the story was based were falsified.

"In relying on documents that I now believe were fake, I failed to do my job," reporter Chuck Philips said in a statement. "I'm sorry."

Deputy Managing Editor Marc Duvoisin also issued a mea culpa, stating: "We should not have let ourselves be fooled. That we were is as much my fault as Chuck's. I deeply regret that we let our readers down."

In a text message exchange with Ryan Seacrest Thursday morning, Diddy said he was "shocked" that the story was ever published.

"Look, this needs to be clear how wrong they were," the rap mogul wrote, emphasizing he never had any advance knowledge of the attack on Shakur.

Despite his ire over the faulty reporting, Diddy said he was moving forward and trying to stay focused on other areas of his life.

"I'm focusing on my acting, I'm focusing on raising my son," he wrote.

Los Angeles Times editor Russ Stanton said Wednesday the newspaper was launching an internal investigation into those so-called FBI records in light of the Smoking Gun's revelation that most of the documents that fueled the Times' report were fabricated, forged by an incarcerated Florida conman who fancied himself a hardcore hip-hop insider.

"Questions have been raised about the authenticity of documents that we relied on for a story on the assault of Tupac Shakur in New York," Times editor Russ Stanton said in a statement. "We are taking this very seriously and have begun our own investigation."

According to the Smoking Gun, convict James Sabatino, whose own father described him in a letter to a federal judge as a "disturbed young man who needed attention like a drug," filed what looked like an FBI interview report along with civil court documents related to an ongoing lawsuit against Combs. 

The 31-year-old Sabatino, who's currently behind bars in Pennsylvania on a fraud charge, is suing the hip-hop mogul for $16 million over an alleged botched business deal. 

Among the indicators that the documents were bogus: They were riddled with spelling and grammatical errors, composed by typewriter rather than computer, contained blacked-out sections and had FBI filing numbers not found in the bureau's database. 

"Beyond ridiculous and completely false" was how Combs described the March 17 article by Pulitzer Prize-winner Philips, which alleged, based on mostly anonymous sources and "confidential FBI files," that two former associates of Combs orchestrated the shooting and beating of Shakur in retribution for his refusal to join Combs' Bad Boy Records label—and that Combs, who was in the studio several floors above where the beatdown took place, knew about it beforehand. 

It was this attack on Shakur that authorities say launched the East Coast-West Coast war that resulted in the deaths of Shakur, a Death Row Records artist, in 1996 and, less than a year later, Bad Boy rapper Biggie Smalls. 

"Neither [Notorious B.I.G.] nor I had any knowledge of any attack before, during or after it happened," Combs continued. "I am shocked that the Los Angeles Times would be so irresponsible as to publish such a baseless and completely untrue story."  

The article was first posted online as a web-only exclusive and then an abridged version was published in the Times' print edition two days later, despite an unequivocal demand from Combs' legal camp to keep the story out of the paper. 

In a letter addressed to Times publisher David Hiller and dated March 18, L.A.-based attorney Howard Weitzman asked for a retraction of the online story, stating Philips had "absolutely no information that would allow readers to determine for themselves the reliability of the anonymous sources used in the Article." (View the letter.)

The lawyer also called it "telling" that the purported confidential FBI informant was not among the anonymous sources directly cited by the writer. 

"The Times has not only defamed Mr. Combs, but failed its readers by printing a story of dubious ongoing news value...that breached its own journalistic standards in its use of anonymous sources," Weitzman continued. Finally, he informed Hiller that Combs was retaining the right to take further legal action.

In a follow-up letter dated March 26, and obtained exclusively by E! News, Weitzman said that despite the newspaper's internal investigation and apology, Combs "continues to reserve his right to bring a lawsuit against the Times for the damage caused by the false and defamatory article." (View the letter.)

Talent manager James Rosemund, who was named in the story as one of the individuals responsible for setting up the attack on Shakur, said Wednesday that the article created "a potentially violent climate in the hip-hop community." His lawyer, Marc Lichtman, had stronger words for the Times, stating: "I would suggest to Mr. Philips and his editors that they immediately print an apology and take out their checkbooks—or brace themselves for an epic lawsuit."

–Additional reporting by Claudia Rosenbaum. 

(Originally published March 26, 2008 at  3:45 p.m. PT.)