The Los Angeles Times and star investigative reporter Chuck Philips were the subjects of a humiliating apology from the paper for basing an investigative report on false documents.

The apology is here.

The original Philips story detailed a conspiracy against and attack on rapper Tupac Shakur, who was ambushed in the lobby of a New York recording studio in 1994 and shot five times. Shakur survived, but the assault sparked a rap gang war that ultimately left him and rival rapper the Notorious B.I.G. dead.

The LAT story was partially based on FBI documents the paper now acknowledges were forgeries.

Yesterday, the Smoking Gun web site published a devastating 5000-word refutation of the documents, convincingly detailing not only their falsity but also the strange character behind them, a compulsive con man and rap wannabe who seemed to have spent most of his short adult life in jail for one hare-brained scheme after another.

From the LAT apology story:

“In relying on documents that I now believe were fake, I failed to do my job,” Philips said in a statement Wednesday. “I’m sorry.”

In his statement, [Deputy Managing Editor Marc] Duvoisin added: “We should not have let ourselves be fooled. That we were is as much my fault as Chuck’s. I deeply regret that we let our readers down.”

The thrust of the original story was that two New York rap folks set Shakur up that night; the attack was supposed to be a beating, but guns were drawn and shooting resulted. The paper also said that producer Sean “Puffy” Combs knew about the attack in advance. Combs has denied it and is now threatening to sue.

In the wake of this debacle, however, at least four clear questions remain.

In the original story, Philips wrote:

The [now discredited] records—summaries of FBI interviews with the informant conducted in July and December 2002—provide details of how Shakur was lured to the studio and ambushed. Others with knowledge of the incident corroborated the informant’s account in interviews with The Times and gave additional details.

Were those corroborations part of the fraud? Sources telling a reporter what he wanted to hear? Or are they evidence on their own that the thrust of the story was valid?

Question two: Here’s the most troubling passage in the LAT story, and one that was not explained in the apology:

The FBI documents do not name the informant. The Times learned his identity and verified that he was at the Quad on the night of the assault. When contacted, the man said the FBI records accurately convey what happened, and what he told investigators. He and the other sources interviewed for this article discussed the events of Nov. 30, 1994, on condition that their names not be published.

I asked Philips if he still stood behind that assertion in the story; will post his answer if he responds.

Third, what exactly was Sabatino’s real career in the rap world? The Smoking Gun expose is an indelible portrait of an incompetent con man—one with almost a compulsion to scam, but undercut by a comic array of personal qualities that undermine this compulsion, ranging from ADD to what might charitably be described as unclear thinking.

In Philips’ story, he is a “promoter”; there is little hint of the, ah, pungency of his career. Still, it asserted this:

Sabatino became a fixture in Combs’ circle. He went on the road with B.I.G. and joined Combs on his 1997 “No Way Out” tour, helping him stage lavish private parties and land corporate sponsorships.

During the tour, Sabatino used fake credit cards to run up tens of thousands of dollars in charges for hotel suites, limousines and helicopters for the Bad Boy entourage. He was arrested in London and extradited to the U.S. He is serving an 111⁄2-year prison term for wire fraud and racketeering.

The TSG story says only that he was jailed in London for “ripping off the Four Seasons hotel.” Was Sabatino an associate of Combs or not? The LAT apology didn’t address that issue, either.

Which brings up the final and perhaps most problematic issue of the story: How much did Philips rely on Sabatino as an unnamed source? The apology story says he trusted the fake FBI documents because he found them in a court filing. (Unfortunately, it was a Sabatino court filing.)

In the original story, Philips wrote that Sabatino “declined to comment.” But was he a major behind-the-scenes source? Could he be the “informant” himself, confirming the accuracy of the documents he forged? Still to be heard from the Times is whether the remainder of the Philips’ original contentions were sound—or whether the extent to which he relied on Sabatino as a major but unnamed source has compromised the rest of the story.