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Just months after she struck a plea deal to avoid time behind bars, the fiancee of Marion "Suge" Knight was sentenced to three years in jail Friday for a probation violation linked to the former rap mogul's pending murder trial.
Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Douglas Sortino ruled that Toi-Lin Kelly, 37, helped Knight violate a court order limiting his jailhouse phone communications by aiding him in arranging interviews with the producers of a BET documentary about Death Row Records, the record label he founded in 1988.
Sortino also found that she was indirectly communicating with Knight through a private investigator, violating the terms of probation he granted her in October.
"To me it's pretty blatant, and frankly, jaw-dropping," Sortino said, adding that Kelly had basically slapped him in the face after he granted her probation.
Prosecutors last year accused Kelly of selling surveillance footage connected to Knight's murder trial to the gossip website TMZ for $55,000. A judge had previously ordered that the recording not be shared with the media.
In October, Kelly pleaded no contest to conspiring to violate a court order. She was ordered to pay $55,000 in restitution, perform 100 hours of community service and serve five years on probation.
On Friday, Kelly broke down in tears while reading a letter to the court, calling her arrests in relation to Knight's case a "humbling" and "humiliating" experience. She pleaded with Sortino to think about her 8-year-old son, who will be without both parents if she and Knight remain incarcerated. Kelly also said her father died of cancer shortly before she was arrested on the probation violation in December.
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