Former rap impresario Marion “Suge” Knight claims Dr. Dre, his onetime business partner, paid $20,000 to have him killed in 2015, recently filed court documents show.

In a signed declaration, Knight said a hit man’s presence at a Compton burger stand that Jan. 29 — the day Knight is accused of intentionally ramming his red truck into two men, killing one of them — backs up his claims that he acted in self-defense. An attorney representing Dr. Dre, whose real name is Andre Young, on Friday called the allegations “absurd” and “defamatory.”

Knight, who appeared in court Friday wearing orange jail scrubs and a chain around his waist, is accused of killing Terry Carter, 55, outside Tam’s Burgers at Central and East Rosecrans avenues following an argument on the set of the movie “Straight Outta Compton.” Footage from a security camera at the burger joint shows Knight — who has pleaded not guilty — barreling his Ford F-150 Raptor pickup into Carter and Cle “Bone” Sloan, who survived. Knight, who fled the scene but later turned himself in, also is accused in separate cases of robbery and threatening “Straight Outta Compton” director F. Gary Gray.

In Knight’s declaration, which was attached to a document filed in court this week, the defendant said that during a jailhouse visit in 2016, a private investigator who no longer is working on his case showed him a check for $20,000. It was dated Nov. 16, 2014, and was from Young’s personal account, Knight wrote.

Read the full story on LATimes.com.