The Los Angeles Times issued a statement of apology Wednesday regarding a Tupac Shakur story published last week in which it explains that the reporter and editor responsible for the article were the victims of an elaborate hoax.

Reporter Chuck Philips and his supervising editor Marc Duvoisin issued statements of apology Wednesday afternoon for a recent article on the 1994 fatal attack of rapper Tupac Shakur which garnered ample criticism, the Los Angeles Times reports on its website.

Philips admitted he had relied on documents which he now believes are “fake.” Duvoisin said, “We should not have let ourselves be fooled” and apologized to the readers for “letting them down.”

Times Editor Russ Stanton said he took the criticisms of the March 17 report “very seriously” and that an internal investigation was underway. “We published this story with the sincere belief that the documents were genuine, but our good intentions are beside the point,” Stanton said in a statement.

“The bottom line is that the documents we relied on should not have been used. We apologize both to our readers and to those referenced in the documents and, as a result, in the story. We are continuing to investigate this matter and will fulfill our journalistic responsibility for critical self-examination.”

The March 17 article was supposedly based on FBI records, interviews with people at the scene of the 1994 shooting, and statements to the FBI by an informant. None of the sources were named.

The paper also claimed rap mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs had been involved in the 1994 shooting of Tupac Shakur. It now appears though that the documents which these allegations were based on were actually fabricated by a prison inmate with a history of exaggerating his place in the rap music world.

It was The Smoking Gun that first declared the paper had been conned, arguing that the documents appeared to be fake. Philips said Wednesday that a former FBI agent examined the documents in question and said they appeared to be legitimate. He added he wished he had done more to investigate their authenticity.

Combs called the allegations “beyond ridiculous” and said the story was a “libelous piece of garbage.”

“I am shocked that the Los Angeles Times would be so irresponsible as to publish such a baseless and completely untrue story,” he said at the time.

Both he and his talent manager James Rosemond, who was also mentioned in the story, refused to be interviewed for the article. “In the past 14 years, I have not even been questioned by law enforcement with regard to the assault of Tupac Shakur, let alone brought up on charges,” Combs added.

The 1994 attack led to a feud between east and west coast rappers which in turn led to the killings of Shakur and Notorious B.I.G.

Image credit: Diddy.com