DX: Your report was the first time I’d seen the name James Sabatino connected with this case. If he was intimately involved in a plot that left Tupac shot multiple times why is his name just now surfacing publicly in relation to this crime over 13 years after the shooting?
CP: Well, I don’t know the answer to that. I never looked at this case ever until I stumbled on these names, and they happened to be names that [led me to] him. I had never heard of him either. But he definitely knew these guys. I mean, there was things I left out of this story that… He had dealings with Bad Boy. He was around at that time. And he was actually at the studio that night.

DX: To the best of your knowledge, was James Sabatino ever interviewed by any law enforcement agency regarding his knowledge of this case?
CP: I think he was subpoenaed to go to the grand jury, a lot of people were. But I don’t know if he spoke to them.

DX: You’re talking about the recent probe by federal prosecutors into this case?
CP: Yeah, out in the Eastern District of New York.

DX: Going back to the origins of Sabatino, did Busta Rhymes, Heavy D, Lords Of The Underground, etc all really seek Sabatino’s management services because of his membership in La Cosa Nostra and that “membership in organized crime is glamourized in the Hip Hop world,” as the confidential source interviewed by the F.B.I. suggested?
CP: Well, I don’t know whether that’s why they did it or not. But I know that there are people that do… I mean, you know Scarface is one of the biggest movies in Hip Hop. And [Biggie’s alias] Frank White came out of a gangster movie, right? Scarface the rapper took his name from the movie. [Artists] I know liked all of those Italian mafia movies. I believe Tupac used to watch Scarface all of the time. In fact, the scene [that opens the uncensored video to] “2 Of Amerikaz Most Wanted” was based on Scarface. When he has Puffy and Biggie lookalikes and he comes in wounded, that’s right out of Scarface. So that is kind of glamourized in the Hip Hop world I think.

DX: I guess my question is really just Sabatino was so young at the time and so I’m just wondering what the magnet would be for these established artists to want a 19-year-old to be their manager?
CP: I don’t know the answer to that. It seems to me that would be… I don’t think he had any connections in the music business. I never heard of him. I mean, at the time when I was writing about all those people back then that name [never surfaced]. I’d never heard James Sabatino’s name until last year.

DX: But he was supposedly with Jimmy Henchmen almost continuously during that time?
CP: Yep, he helped co-promote “How Can I Be Down?,” that convention. So he was around, I just never heard of him. There was a lot of people around [at that time]. And frequently what people forget is people around let’s say Suge Knight or around Tupac back then when you talk to them now they may be more willing to talk about things they saw then. And there were a lot of people around Puffy back then. And a lot of them were criminals. Many of them went to jail, but that doesn’t mean they stopped talking. So just ‘cause I never heard of a name doesn’t mean he wasn’t there. This guy clearly was around.

DX: Let’s flesh this out a little more though, if Sabatino knew Tupac and was allegedly in cahoots with Henchmen in the ’94 shooting, why then was Sabatino not named by ‘Pac as part of the plot in “Against All Odds”?
CP: I don’t know. ‘Pac got a couple things wrong. Like, he named [King] Tut, and Tut had nothing to do with this. If you look at the sidebar, I put it in the timeline… Tut had nothing to do with it. ‘Pac called him out. He blamed Tut… It was kind of hard to get it into the story, and it may come into another story, but if you remember there was a New York Daily News story… The only way Tut was ever mentioned in the media was a Daily News story where an informant told a law enforcement officer – he was quoted anonymously in the Daily News – that the reason Tupac got beat up and shot was because he needed to be disciplined. It was a little teeny story in the Daily News. And the police tried to get Tut to inform on Puffy. They were trying to get information about the shooting of Tupac in Las Vegas and Combs’ alleged involvement in that and alleged involvement in the Quad [shooting]. And Tut didn’t know anything about it and told ‘em so. The people I talked to who did have some involvement in this have assured me that Tut had nothing to do with it. He wasn’t there. So Tupac was wrong about that. I’m just saying that may be why he didn’t mention Sabatino [in “Against All Odds”]. He didn’t get everything right [in the song], but he got a lot of it right. Continued on page 3 »