Prisoner confesses to shooting Tupac Shakur in 1994

(the guardian) Man serving life sentence on unrelated charges claims he was hired to rob Tupac Shakur, setting off a fatal chain of events

A man has admitted to the non-fatal 1994 shooting of Tupac Shakur, claiming he was paid $2,500 to rob the rapper at Manhattan's Quad studio. Dexter Isaac, currently serving a life sentence on unrelated charges, said he was hired by hip-hop manager Jimmy "Henchman" Rosemond to ambush and mug Shakur, setting off three years of reprisals that left Shakur and Notorious BIG dead.

"Jimmy, I say to you: I have kept your secrets for years," Isaac told AllHiphop. "I have stayed silent in prison for the past 13 years, doing a life sentence like a real soldier should, when you and everybody have turned your backs on me ... Now I would like to clear up a few things, because the statute of limitations is over, and no one can be charged, and I'm just plain tired of listening to your lies. In 1994, James Rosemond hired me to rob 2Pac Shakur at the Quad studio. He gave me $2,500, plus all the jewellery I took, except for one ring, which he wanted for himself."

Isaac has spent the past decade behind bars, serving time on a 1998 indictment for murder, robbery, fraud and witness intimidation. He and Rosemond have long been linked with Shakur's robbery, though neither man was ever charged. In 2008, the LA Times published – and later retracted – an article contending that Rosemond and other associates of Sean Combs (AKA Diddy) arranged the attack as payback for Shakur's rejection of Combs's record label. The LA Times ultimately admitted their allegations were based on fabricated FBI reports. But Shakur himself had made these claims before his death. "Promised [to] pay back Jimmy Henchman in due time," he rapped on Against All Odds. "Heard the guns bust, but your tricks never shut me up ... All out warfare, eye for eye."

Now a manager for stars including Sean Kingston and the Game, Rosemond is allegedly on the run. He disappeared in May, amid federal drugs charges, complaining that events had "caught [him] off guard" in a letter to XXL magazine. "I came up from nothing and made some mistakes early in my life, of which I have already served time," he wrote. "Since then I have worked hard to establish my career in the music industry only to be targeted by these opportunistic prosecutors with a personal vendetta against me." Rosemond asserted he was being smeared by scurrilous informants, including Isaac.

Isaac now says it was this allegation that prompted him to come forward about the events of 30 November 1994. "I have never been a rat for anybody," Isaac replied. Instead he alleges that Rosemond himself is a "turncoat rat". "If I was an informant like you, I would've been home years ago with my family," Isaac wrote.

Isaac did not admit to the September 1996 murder of Shakur, and also refused to comment on the March 1997 slaying of his "friend" Notorious BIG. Both these crimes remain unsolved. "But I would like to give their mothers some closure," he wrote. "It's about time that someone did, and I will do so at a different time. Jimmy, you and Puffy like to come off all innocent-like, but as the saying goes: you can fool some of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time."

Had he lived, Tupac Shakur would have celebrated his 40th birthday today.