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Rap legend Snoop Dogg is riding high in 2024, from being an NBC correspondent at the Olympics to serving as a coach on “The Voice.” But over three decades ago, in 1993, the rapper hit a low point when he was charged with murder. Snoop Dogg found himself at the center of a highly-publicized trial until his acquittal in 1996, per Vibe.
All these years later, a major development in the case was revealed on October 9, 2024. According to TMZ, Snoop Dogg, 52, filed paperwork in January asking a judge to seal the records surrounding his arrest and murder charge. The request was quietly granted in February, TMZ reported.
Snoop Dogg Said in 1996 He Left the Murder Case ‘in God’s Hands’
Snoop Dogg and his bodyguard, McKinley Lee, were arrested over the August 1993 shooting of a gang member named Philip Woldemariam in a Los Angeles park, according to the Daily Mail.
The rapper, whose birth name is Calvin Cordozar Broadus Jr., was a budding star at the time and wrote a hit song, “Murder Was The Case,” about the accusations against him and the media frenzy around it, according to TV Insider. He famously performed the song at the MTV Awards before turning himself in, per BET.
Snoop Dogg and Lee remained free on $1 million bail, according to the Daily Mail, and went through a two-year trial, facing first and second-degree murder charges. Both men were found not guilty in 1996.After his acquittal, Snoop Dogg told MTV News, as seen in the video above, that he was able to keep his cool in the courtroom because he “left it in God’s hands.”
In 2020, Snoop Dogg recalled on the Million Dollaz Worth of Game podcast that it was a scary time for him in his early 20s but that it taught him “discipline because everyone around me was running wild.”
“I didn’t know what to expect, I didn’t know how to carry myself, I didn’t know how to act because I was never in a position like that,” he said, admitting that in his teens and early 20s, when he’d previously gotten in trouble with the law for drugs or gang related activity, he normally “took a deal.”
“This was the first time I ever had a lawyer, I had somebody speak for me,” he remembered, revealing that he was on house arrest outside the court. “I couldn’t say nothing, I couldn’t do nothing, I had to let the lawyers speak and just sit in court and be on my best behavior.”
To seal the documents from that case, Snoop Dogg got help from Ceasar McDowell and his nonprofit organization Unite the People Now, according to TMZ.
With the petition approved, details of the case can’t be accessed by the general public or appear in background checks, according to the New York Daily News, which also said Snoop Dogg may also receive his fingerprints, booking photos and DNA samples from the case.
Snoop Dogg Now Helps Young People Stay Out of Trouble With Football League
To help ensure young people stay out of trouble, Snoop Dogg built something he didn’t have growing up — the Snoop Youth Football League (SYFL), which he launched in 2005, according to NBC. The afterschool program for inner-city kids ages five to 13 started in Los Angeles, but has grown into a national movement. According to the nonprofit’s website, over 60,000 kids have participated in the program since its founding.
In 2009, Snoop Dogg told ESPN, “When you’re dealing with them kids, it’s a different kind of love. It’s a love that lets you go back to being a kid again.”
“That’s the beautiful part about it,” he continued. “When the kids watch the guys in the NFL, they want to be like them, but I tell them, the NFL players want to be just like you guys; they remember what it was like to be young and out runnin’ around havin’ fun. That’s what makes me happy, to see these kids here, because they have so much fun playing football.”
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