A man reputed to be a Los Angeles gang leader passed himself off as a community activist while he was running a “mafia-like organization" and committing a number of offenses, including the murder of an aspiring rapper, officials said Wednesday.
Eugene "Big U" Henley Jr., 58, turned himself in to federal authorities Wednesday afternoon and will eventually face charges of extortion, human trafficking, fraud and murder, federal authorities said.
Sylvester "Vey" Robinson, 59; Mark "Bear Claw" Martin, 50; and Henley were among 19 people accused in the wide-ranging charges, authorities said.
While Henley assumed the role of community peacemaker, officials said, he was really an active member of the Rollin’ 60s Crips street gang, officials said.
"He has maintained the image of an entertainment industry entrepreneur running a music label, of somebody who gives back to the community here in Los Angeles, funding a South L.A.-based charity, Developing Options, which purports to help at-risk youth escape gang life and escape the perils of gangs in high-crime areas," acting U.S. Attorney Joseph McNally told reporters.
"The facts alleged in the complaint paint a very different picture. It is one of a murderer, a thief, a liar and a cheat," McNally continued.
Henley's Big U Enterprises was a "mafia-like organization that utilized Mr. Henley's stature and long-standing association with the Crips criminal street gang and other gangs here in Los Angeles to intimidate businesses and individuals," McNally added.
Authorities said Henley fatally shot an aspiring rapper, called "R.W." in court documents, in North Las Vegas, Nevada, and dumped the victim's body in a ditch near Interstate 15 in January 2021, after the musician recorded a diss track about Henley.
Henley passed himself off as a community activist interested in bringing peace to South Los Angeles, but the operation was really just a vehicle to scam "celebrities, professional athletes and businesses" for donations that were embezzled, McNally said.
Henley "fraudulently obtained funding from the City of Los Angeles’s Mayor’s Office through the Gang Reduction Youth Development Foundation," according to the complaint.
That city fund awarded Developing Options $2.352 million from July 1, 2018, to June 30, 2023, and Henley drew hundreds of thousands of dollars in salary, prosecutors alleged.
He also "defrauded and attempted to defraud the Small Business Administration for loans that benefited the Big U Enterprise," the complaint added.
“Henley used this charity as a front,” McNally said. “He used it to conceal his fraudulent activities, his criminal enterprise activities and to evade detection from law enforcement.”
Henley also did not take well to disrespect and had a simmering beef with popular Los Angeles rapper Nipsey Hussle, according to the criminal complaint filed against him.
Nipsey Hussle recorded a diss track about Henley, saying he is "a scrapper, not a rapper.” Even after they were said to have squashed that beef, Henley believed the young rapper needed to be “disciplined,” authorities said.
"Nipsey Hussle’s brother intervened" but not before "violence erupted, and when LAPD officers arrived on the scene, a firearm was present and discharged," according to the complaint.
A member of the Rollin’ 60s murdered Nipsey Hussle in 2019, the complaint said.
The arrests also netted 49 weapons, 5 pounds of meth, 10,000 fentanyl pills and “large amounts of cash,” said Ted Docks, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles office.
