LAT reporter Chuck Philips added a colorful footnote to his already colorful career today when a story in the Times reported that a convicted murderer at a hearing charged under oath that Philips had passed on threatening notes from Suge Knight to the inmate during jailhouse visits.

The charge doesn’t look that serious; the story details the convict’s long history of claims and retractions. Ironically enough, Philips wrote a 2500-word-long article questioning the validity of Anderson’s murder conviction last year:

[…P]rosecutors persuaded a jury that the entertainer known as “Suave” was a ruthless drug dealer who had torched a home near the USC campus, killing a man to avenge an unpaid drug debt. Anderson was sentenced to life in prison without parole for first-degree murder.

Now, after nearly 13 years behind bars, he has asked the state Court of Appeal to throw out his conviction, contending that new evidence shows he could not have committed the crime.

Two witnesses who identified him at the trial as the arsonist have given sworn statements saying that they lied under pressure from police.

Philips-hating blogger Patterico, an anonymous LA prosecutor, goes nuts with the story here.

Philips is quoted denying the allegation:

“That never happened,” said Philips, who has written several stories about Anderson’s murder conviction suggesting that Anderson may be innocent. “I’m flabbergasted by this whole thing. This is the ultimate betrayal.”

Knight, the founder of Death Row Records, could not be reached for comment.

And Philips told the paper he had talked to Anderson recently:

In recent weeks, Philips said, he has kept in regular contact with Anderson’s family, though he has not been covering the hearing for the newspaper. Over the weekend, Philips said, Anderson’s wife set up a conference call with Anderson from jail.

Anderson, he said, asked for his help. Philips said he told him he could do nothing more.

“He just said, ‘I’m hung out here all by myself.’ I said, ‘I don’t know what I can do. There’s nothing I can do,’ ” Philips said.

Philips was one of the Times staffers who accepted a recent buyout offer; he left the paper last week. With another reporter he won a Pulitzer Prize in 2001 for exposing corruption at NARAS, the organization that puts on the Grammys.

Earlier this year, however, he suffered a massive humiliation days after he published a blockbuster investigative piece alleging that rap impressario Sean Puffy Combs had known in advance of an ambush on rapper Tupac Shakur in New York in 1994. The piece was refuted by the Smoking Gun web site and later formally retracted by the paper.

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Previously in Hitsville:

Big Trouble in LA: The Times retracts the Tupac story

At the LA Times, the pain may be just beginning

Did the LAT get hoaxed on its Tupac bombshell?

What will become of Chuck Philips?

Dark Deeds!: The Chuck Philips/Anthony Pellicano connection

Also:

The LAT’s apology and its original story.

The Smoking Gun’s expose of the hoax.