Last week, the Los Angeles Times reported that hip-hop mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs was behind the 1994 shooting of Tupac that catalyzed the bi-coastal rap war which culminated in both the killing of Tupac and the Notorious B.I.G. Maybe not: The Smoking Gun today is now reporting that the Times' story was based largely on falsified FBI reports.

According to TSG, the fabricated documents were the handiwork of an imprisoned 31-year-old con man named James Sabatino. Four months ago, Sabatino filed a $16 million civil suit against Combs over a decade-old business deal gone sour. The TSG now says that the two FBI documents the LAT used to implicate Puffy are "nowhere to be found in the bureau's computerized Automated Case Support database," and contain many of the spelling errors ("makeing," "durring") and improper abbreviations found in the motion Sabatino himself filed.

Perhaps most damaging to the authenticity of the documents used by the Times is that they appear to have been created by same typewritter Sabatino used: "Additionally, an examination of the three documents revealed that the bodies of the respective "302s" were actually created on a typewriter (the "frame" of the reports is consistent with an authentic "302" template). In some instances, you can see where one letter was typed on top of an existing character, a so-called overstrike. In an interview, Bruce Mouw, a former FBI supervisor who headed the bureau's pursuit of John Gotti, estimated that agents ceased using typewriters about 30 years ago."

Diddy vehemently denied the Times' story when it came out. (It was written by veteran Pulitzer Prize-winning journo Chuck Philips.) The Times says it's now launching its own investigation into the matter. Sabatino has yet to be reached for comment. More to come, obviously.