Music Executive and Alleged LA Gang Leader Eugene Henley Jr. Charged in 43-Count Criminal Indictment

He has been accused of embezzlement as well as robbery and human trafficking, including the exploitation of sex workers, as part of a larger racketeering case alongside co-defendants Sylvester Robinson and Mark Martin.

Prosecutors allege Henley ran the “Big U Enterprise” as a criminal enterprise responsible for the extortion of celebrities, from professional athletes to musicians, and the January 2021 killing of a rapper federal officials have only identified as R.W.

While revealing other news details in the case, the indictment returned by a grand jury this week describes one of the witnesses in the killing as a Grammy-winning producer. The 75-page document cites Instagram posts Henley made hours before his arrest on March 19, after prosecutors had announced the case, as being tied to a racketeering conspiracy charge filed against him.

He faces dozens of other felony charges including robbery, wire fraud, extortion, embezzlement and tax evasion.

CBS News Los Angeles could not locate an attorney for Henley. He denied allegations against him in the Instagram posts last week.

Henley has been in federal custody since his arrest on March 19. During the early morning hours that day, prosecutors say he fled his home and turned off his cellphone while other defendants in the investigation were arrested. In a statement released Thursday, the U.S. Attorney’s Office mentions the posts he allegedly made to social media that day blaming his co-defendants and opponents and telling the public to not associate with his known opponents and co-defendants.

“I’m looking at all these charges in the news. I’m heading back to LA,” Henley says in one of the videos posted to the Instagram account for the Crenshaw Cougars, which features youth football programs.

“This how they get you,” he says in the video. “They get one or two people to say something. Ain’t going to be no real evidence. Ain’t going to be no real nothing … Now, they’re saying all that stuff to assassinate my character.”

As of Thursday afternoon, four videos in which Henley speaks toward the camera about the case remain up on the page.

In the indictment, prosecutors allege the videos were “an attempt to poison the jury pool” as well as “an attempt to intimidate and dissuade anyone from cooperating with law enforcement.”

In the hours before Henley’s arrest, 10 other alleged Crips members in the case had been arrested and another four were already in custody with just one other defendant — aside from Henley — still at large at the time. While the criminal complaint unsealed last week details charges against all those defendants, the indictment lists charges against Henley and just six other defendants.

The aspiring rapper allegedly killed by Henley and his associates had been coached by Henley in football since he was young and once lived with him, according to prosecutors. On Jan. 25, 2021, he was found with multiple gunshot wounds to the head, his body dumped off Interstate-15 in the desert outside Las Vegas.

In 2004, Henley founded a nonprofit called Developing Options, an LA-based nonprofit that listed its purpose online as giving youth “choices beyond the gang violence, drug, and crime through: advocacy, education, resources, training and development and sports.” On the nonprofit’s website, Henley is currently listed as founder and executive director.

The indictment states the group received $2,352,000 from the Gang Reduction and Youth Development program within the Mayor’s Office between July 2018 and June 2023. Prosecutors said Henley fraudulently transferred public funds, as well as more than $40,000 in donations from two NBA players, to his personal accounts.

Featured in the 2021 FX documentary Hip Hop Uncovered, Henley’s life story as a Crips leader in Hyde Park who turned his life around and became an anti-gang activist trying to help youth was covered by outlets such as the Los Angeles Times.

In 1992, the newspaper reported on the cocaine robbery conviction that resulted in him serving 13 years in prison, when he was known as a leader of the Hyde Park-based Rollin 60s faction of the Crips.

Thirty-one years later, his son, Los Angeles Chargers linebacker Daiyan Henley, was profiled in a Times piece dubbed “a father-son story and a comeback story,” which described the older Henley as a “multi-cellphone-wielding, Range Rover-maneuvering entertainment executive who produces documentaries, managed Kurupt and launched the career of Nipsey Hussle.”

Prosecutors allege in court documents that Henley held a sort of grip over Los Angeles through his longtime gang associations and ties to celebrities and well-known West Coast rappers.

The criminal complaint unsealed last week cites the account of a witness who spoke with the FBI in 2022 and told federal agents there were “instances where NBA players or other celebrities would need to work with and get approval in advance from HENLEY to ensure their safety at events in Los Angeles such as parties, gambling games, or advertising shoots.”

“(The witness) said that these celebrities would have to seek and/or pay HENLEY for protection and approval or face retaliation from the Big U Enterprise,” the court documents state.

The indictment describes such transactions as so-called “check-ins” required of those coming to LA.