Michael Sanft, the Las Vegas attorney who represented Tupac Shakur’s convicted killer, has died at 55, just days after his client began the process of appealing his conviction.
Sanft, who defended Duane ‘Keffe D’ Davis in the high-profile murder case, was found dead at his home on Friday morning.
His death came as Davis, 63, prepared to challenge his conviction. A notice of appeal was filed on Friday, October 30, according to FOX5.
Davis was sentenced to 40 years to life in prison on October 13 after a jury convicted him of first-degree murder with the use of a deadly weapon in connection with Shakur’s 1996 killing.
He was charged after discussing the shooting in interviews and detailing his involvement in a 2019 memoir. Davis remains the only person ever charged in the rap icon’s death.
‘I don’t see what I could’ve done differently,’ Sanft previously said of the case, which he handled pro bono.
The Clark County Coroner’s Office said Sanft’s cause and manner of death remained pending, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
A police spokesperson told the outlet that the death did not appear to be suspicious.
Las Vegas attorney Michael Sanft, who represented Tupac’s convicted killer Duane ‘Keffe D’ Davis, has died at 55
Sanft (left) died as 63-year-old Davis prepared to appeal his conviction. Davis was sentenced to 40 years to life in prison on October 13, when this photograph was taken
Sanft later recalled speaking with Davis after the verdict and said he was ‘very disappointed in the jury.’
‘He had reminded me this is phase one,’ Sanft said, according to FOX5.
‘Mr. Davis was the one who said, “Don’t worry about it, man,”‘ Sanft recalled. ‘And I said, “I understand, I hate to lose.”‘
On the night of September 7, 1996, Shakur was riding in the passenger seat of a black BMW with music executive Marion ‘Suge’ Knight in Las Vegas when a white Cadillac pulled up beside them at a red light.
In his memoir, Davis said he wanted revenge after Shakur and members of his entourage had assaulted his nephew, Orlando Anderson, earlier that day.
Davis said he was sitting in the Cadillac’s front passenger seat and handed the gun to someone in the back.
Gunfire erupted, striking Shakur several times. He died six days later.
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Davis had spoken with detectives years earlier but avoided prosecution under an agreement he reached with authorities.
Prosecutors later used Davis’s own statements during the weeks-long trial. Following nine days of testimony in August, jurors deliberated for three hours before finding him guilty.
Sanft argued that Davis’s statements amounted to lies and that the prosecution’s case was built around them.
A cause of death for Sanft, pictured with Davis in Clark County District Court, had not been disclosed as of Saturday morning
During the trial, Sanft maintained that Davis’s interviews and memoir contained false claims about Shakur’s 1996 murder
A jury convicted Davis of first-degree murder after nine days of testimony in August
Marc DiGiacomo, one of the prosecutors who worked on the Shakur murder case, described Sanft as ‘one of the premier defense attorneys in Las Vegas.’
‘Las Vegas lost a good lawyer and, more importantly to me, I lost a friend,’ DiGiacomo said Friday, according to the Review-Journal.
Clark County District Court marshal Michael Sloan, who identified himself as one of Sanft’s closest friends, called him ‘one of the best human beings I knew.’
Mike Troiano, another Las Vegas attorney, remembered Sanft as an ‘extremely talented trial lawyer who jurors and his peers loved.’
‘I’m in total shock by this news, as is the legal community as a whole,’ Troiano said, according to KSNV.
A public biography said Sanft grew up on the South Pacific island of Tonga before moving to San Diego, California, when he was 12.
According to the biography, he had taken more than 150 cases to a jury verdict before his death.
Beyond the Davis trial, Sanft was known for representing former Las Vegas city councilwoman Michele Fiore. She had been accused of using about $70,000 intended for a statue honoring a deceased police officer for personal expenses, including cosmetic surgery.
Fiore was convicted of federal wire fraud in October 2024 but was pardoned by President Donald Trump the following April, before she was sentenced.
‘It’s extremely sad, and the community has lost a very caring, great attorney,’ Fiore told the Review-Journal.
The Daily Mail has contacted the Clark County Coroner’s Office for comment.