B.I.G. Retrial Set

Fri., Jun. 9, 2006 9:50 PM PDT by Natalie Finn

The family of the late Notorious B.I.G. and the city of Los Angeles are getting a do-over.

A couple of weeks after stating that an attorney representing the slain rapper's relatives had "absolutely deceived" her, a federal judge set a retrial date for the wrongful death lawsuit that Biggie Smalls' family brought against the City of Angels in 2002.

U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper ordered both sides back in court Oct. 16, warning them to keep the channels of information-sharing open in the meantime.

The judge voiced her reluctance to hold a retrial last month after lawyers representing the city presented her with a report indicating that the one of the family's attorneys, Perry Sanders, had lied about information he had in his possession during the first wrongful death trial last summer.

But in her ruling Thursday, Cooper wrote that while she initially took the city's side and believed that Sanders had "misrepresented to the court his surprise and shock at learning about this witness in the middle of trial," she no longer felt that way. She ruled that when Sanders first learned about the informant he was inclined to not believe the statements because there were no corroborative police reports to go along with them.

Brad Gage, another attorney representing Biggie's family, told the Los Angeles Times that Cooper's decision "confirms that the city of Los Angeles intentionally concealed documents about the murder of Christopher Wallace [aka Notorious B.I.G.]."

Cooper declared a mistrial in July after Sanders told the court that he had received an anonymous phone call informing him that the LAPD was withholding info about a jailhouse informant who said he knew about some rogue officers' possible involvement in Notorious B.I.G.'s 1997 murder. Cooper ruled that there had been a "deliberate concealment" of evidence and put an end to the trial. She later ordered the city of L.A. to pony up $1.1 million to Biggie's family as a penalty for the purported cover-up and to cover legal fees and other expenses.

The report that the city's lawyers brought to Cooper two weeks ago was drawn up in 2002 by an investigator hired by the family to speak with the same jailhouse informant, who supposedly had talked about Biggie's killing with the former cops whom the LAPD was supposedly covering up for.

Sanders filed papers May 30 defending his claim that the city had withheld evidence and protesting the accusation that he knew about the informant before Judge Cooper declared the mistrial. He also stated that he had already turned over relevant information about the investigator's report to the city's attorneys--who then, in turn, filed a brief Tuesday accusing Biggie's family of going to "odious" and "absurd" lengths to extract more money from their client, Los Angeles.