U.S. District Court Judge Florence-Marie Cooper ruled Monday that Detectives Stanley Nalywaiko, Stewart Maislin and Steven Katz could all be added as defendants in the wrongful-death civil suit filed by the family of Christopher “Notorious B.I.G.” Wallace. The current suit was filed in April of 2007 after a similar suit ended in a mistrial in 2005. In her 2005 ruling (available HERE), Judge Cooper noted that the officers were partially to blame for the suit ending in a mistrial due to a lack of evidence.
“In their capacity as supervisors in the Risk Management Group, [Nalywaiko, Katz and Maislin] failed to supervise or directly participated in the concealment of evidence in this case,”Judge Cooper stated in her ruling. The ruling comes after former Death Row Records Executive Marion “Suge” Knight was added as a defendant on Nov. 19.
The 2005 mistrial marked a turn in the case, which had previously turned up very few leads, despite an 18-month F.B.I. investigation. While very little progress has been made in the case since Wallace was killed in 1997, the family’s attorney, Perry R. Sanders Jr. remained optimistic.
“Judge Cooper’s ruling today gives the family a chance to prove to the world that police were involved in the murder–and that high officials have covered up for those officers,” said Sanders via a written statement. While Judge Cooper’s 11-page ruling also gave the family the option to add other defendants and file separate suits against them, it was primarily made to hold the L.A.P.D. responsible as a collective for “facilitating crime and then covering it up.”
