Toi-Lin Kelly, fiancée of Marion "Suge" Knight, has been sentenced to 3 years in jail after it was ruled she had violated her probation. According to the L.A. Times, Kelly went against the terms of her probation when she indirectly communicated with the incarcerated Knight, as he awaits a murder trial, using a private investigator. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Douglas Sortino also ruled that Kelly had helped to organize interviews with BET for Knight as part of a documentary on Death Row Records.
Knight is barred from having phone contact with anyone but his attorneys, as per a court order placed in 2016. Text messages shown in the court showed that Kelly had placed money in other inmates accounts, which prosecutors argued was payment to use their phone privileges for the interviews. A testimony by Sgt. Richard Biddle of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department claimed that Knight had spoken to two journalists through the phone codes of other inmates.
Kelly was given 5 years probation when she was accused of selling surveillance footage connected to Knight's trial to TMZ. The video, which a judge had ruled could not be shared with the media, was reportedly sold for $55,000. Kelly pleaded no contest to conspiring to violate a court order. She was ordered to pay back the $55,000 in full and complete 100 hours of community service on top of following the conditions of her probation.
Kelly reportedly asked the judge to consider her 8-year-old son, who will be without parents if both she and Suge are to be incarcerated.
Knight has been in jail since January 2015. He was arrested after driving his car into two men, one of whom was killed, following an argument on the set of the film Straight Outta Compton. Knight has argued that he was acting in self-defense.