Biggie's mom drops suspect from lawsuit

Today, according to the L.A. Times, the mother of Notorious B.I.G has agreed to drop a former suspect in the rapper's slaying from a wrongful-death lawsuit.

Voletta Wallace had accused Amir Muhammad, also known as Harry Billups, of shooting her son outside the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles after a music industry party on March 9, 1997.

Her decision to dismiss Muhammad as a defendant followed a pretrial deposition during which he denied any connection to the rapper's death and offered to take a lie-detector test.

The confidential settlement didn't include any payments, the sources said. Muhammad has long maintained his innocence and never been questioned by police in the killing of Notorious B.I.G, whose real name is Christopher Wallace. Muhammad became part of the probe when a jailhouse told detectives that the rapper's killer went by a "Middle East" sounding name.

Voletta Wallace's 2002 lawsuit still names the city of Los Angeles and Muhammad's former college roommate, David A. Mack, a disgraced Los Angeles police officer now serving a 14-year federal prison sentence for bank robbery. It accused Mack of hiring Muhammad to shoot the hip-hop artist and police of failing to investigate properly after a fellow officer came under suspicion.

Wallace's lawyers originally told the city she would settle out of court for $105 million but later reduced the amount to $18 million, the Times said. The proposal was rejected by the City Council last month.

Earlier this month, a judge granted her attorneys' request for a postponement until April to allow more time for discovery in the case and issued an order dividing the trial into three separate phases.