Clayton Armstrong Hill says he had a hand in the cover-up of the 1997 shooting death of hip-hop star Christopher “Notorious B.I.G.” Wallace.
While he’s never been on trial for that claim, a federal judge is among those calling Hill a fugitive for another reason.
Last week, U.S. Magistrate Judge Russell G. Vineyard signed a federal complaint saying Hill walked away from the United States Prison in southeast Atlanta on May 28. He was there after being convicted of tax fraud.
“I was notified by officials … that inmate Clayton Armstrong Hill walked off the grounds,” Deputy U.S. Marshal Clay M. Cleveland said in an affidavit that accompanied the complaint Vineyard signed. “A bed count was conducted to verify Hill’s status, and at approximately 6:40 p.m. Hill was identified as missing.”
The prison camp is a medium security facility.
Hill was indicted in 2009 and pleaded guilty to filing 121 fraudulent federal income tax returns in Illinois and Georgia between 2002 and 2006, receiving more than $353,000 in refunds, according to the indictment.
In his 2011 prison memoirs, Hill claimed that he was involved in the cover-up of the March 9, 1997 fatal shooting of Wallace in Los Angeles.
An excerpt from his book published in July 2011 by the online magazine HipHopDX described Hill providing hospitality in Atlanta and rides to a man he called the shooter days after the incident at the behest of the Nation of Islam, then disposing of the alleged murder weapon.
Reached by phone Wednesday, Abdul Rahman at the Muhammad Mosque No. 15 in southwest Atlanta denied the Nation’s involvement in any such plot.
“We don’t plot to kill anybody,” Rahman said.
The U.S. Bureau of Prisons website on Wednesday still identified Hill’s location as “unknown” and his release date as “escape.”
U.S. Marshals continue to search for Hill.
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