The writer of the Los Angeles Times exposé on a 1994 Tupac Shakur shooting has defended the article despite denials by both Sean “Diddy” Combs and James “Jimmy Henchman” Rosemond. In a live chat on the Los Angeles Times website, Chuck Phillips said he didn’t seek out the story — which alleged two Bad Boy Records associates were behind the ‘94 robbery and shooting of Shakur — but that he “stumbled on it last year after learning the street names of the assailants.” The scribe also defended himself against allegations brought upon by Rosemond that Phillips incorrectly placed Notorious B.I.G. in Las Vegas the night that Tupac was murdered in a 2002 article. While Rosemond (and B.I.G.’s family) say Biggie was home in New Jersey that night, Phillips says “It has never been proven that Christopher Wallace was not in Las Vegas on the night Tupac was shot. Bad Boy produced some computer-generated documents purporting to place him in a recording studio in New York, but they were not time-stamped. Bad Boy said it was going to produce video of Biggie there. They never did that.” Phillips also promised to publish two more stories on the killings of Tupac and Biggie by the end of the year.

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