Rap mogul Suge Knight and comedian Katt Williams are hitting back at allegations they stole a woman’s camera during a confrontation in Beverly Hills last month.
“Our position is that the charges are absolutely unfounded,” Knight’s lawyer Richard Schonfeld told the Daily News Thursday.
“I can tell you from the evidence I have seen, it doesn’t support the charge against Mr. Knight,” he said. “(The alleged victim) didn’t mention Suge Knight doing anything to her in her statement to the police.”
Schonfeld said that at the time of the alleged robbery on Sept. 5, his client was still recovering from multiple gunshot wounds sustained during a nightclub shooting two weeks prior at a party hosted by singer Chris Brown.
“Mr. Knight had been released from the hospital just seven days earlier. He was in no physical shape to do anything,” he said. “My understanding is that Mr. Knight wasn’t immediately present when the conduct occurred.”
The lawyer said Knight had no idea he was a wanted man in California at the time of his Wednesday arrest in Las Vegas and was suffering in jail.
“He doesn’t feel good. He’s got a lot of pain,” Schonfeld told The News. “They won’t prescribe the type of pain medication that his doctors previously prescribed him, based on jail policy.”
Knight, 49, was cuffed and arrested “without incident” at an undisclosed property just off the Las Vegas strip in the area of the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police said.
He was apprehended by a joint task force that included members from the FBI and was booked on the fugitive warrant out of California as well as a Nevada warrant for driving with a suspended license.
The hulking honcho appeared in a Las Vegas court Thursday and had the suspended license charge reduced to a parking ticket with a $190 fine, Schonfeld said.
Knight remains in custody and is due back in court Monday on the fugitive warrant.
Schonfeld said he’ll ask for a “more reasonable” bail than the $1 million sought by prosecutors in Los Angeles.
It was late Wednesday that the Los Angeles County District Attorney announced the two-state sting that rounded up Knight in Nevada and Williams in California.
Williams, 41, was apprehended Wednesday morning after he arrived at an Inglewood court for arraignment in a separate assault case dating back to July.
Both men were charged with one count each of second degree robbery, considered a violent felony in California.
If convicted, Knight could face a maximum of 30 years to life in prison while Williams could face up to seven years.
Williams called alleged victim Leslie Redden a liar in a video interview posted on TMZ.com after his release from custody.
He said Redden, an independent celebrity photographer, started the alleged confrontation by videotaping a 5-year-old child in an alley behind a TV studio in Beverly Hills.
The child was Knight’s son, TMZ reported Thursday.
Williams said he never took Redden’s camera and refused to flip on Knight during questioning by cops.
“Her story is clear that she got in an altercation with me, but she didn’t,” Williams told TMZ. “She says Suge too, but she didn’t have an altercation with that person either.”
He claimed police tried to get him “to blame it on Suge, (but) that’s not happening.”
“I’d rather take it than that. Don’t be silly,” he said.
Attempts to reach Williams were not immediately successful Thursday.
Schonfeld said he hopes to get Knight out of custody on bail before heading to California for arraignment.
“I would like him to be out so he can voluntarily appear in California, which is what he would have done had he been on notice of the charge,” the lawyer told The News.
ndillon@nydailynews.com
