Eugene “Big U” Henley, a Los Angeles Crips leader turned gang interventionist, allegedly solicited fellow jail inmates to murder or seriously injure a federal witness to prevent them from testifying at trial against him and his associates, according to a new indictment returned Wednesday.
The second, superseding indictment against Henley, following his arrest last year on federal racketeering charges, contains charges on seven additional felonies, including solicitation to commit a crime of violence and witness tampering, according to the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles. Henley, 59, had already been accused of murder, kidnapping, robbery, extortion and fraud.
Henley and six other defendants charged in the case are scheduled to go to trial in February 2027. Henley has previously pleaded not guilty to the charges against him.
If convicted, Henley could face up to life in prison for the racketeering conspiracy count. The newly added witness tampering counts carry an additional statutory maximum of life in prison.
Henley’s attorney declined to comment on the new charges. Before turning himself in last year, Henley made videos denying the accusations against him saying, “I ain’t did nothing.”
“I ain’t been nothing but a help to our community,” Henley said. “This the price of being Black and trying to help somebody, trying to help your community and do what you can. You just guilty because somebody else don’t like you.”
According to the new indictment, Henley, who has been in federal custody since March 2025, in June asked about the layout of a housing unit where he believed the victim was located and then allegedly offered to pay two inmates to kill or harm the person.
The new indictment includes allegations that in 2014 Henley and his associates assaulted and later chased a Grammy-winning recording artist through Los Angeles International Airport to collect a debt and for failing to show respect, according to the U.S. attorney’s office in L.A. Although the artist is only identified by his initials, N.D.C, The Times was able to identify him through social media and news reports as Nayvadius DeMun Cash, the rapper known professionally as “Future.”
Federal prosecutors also provided a window into Henley’s relationship with rapper Nipsey Hussle, a fellow Rollin’ 60s Crip whose career he helped launch. Hussle lived with Henley’s family and recorded some of his first tracks in their downstairs studio, according to a 2023 Times article.
According to the indictment, Henley in 2011 requested music equipment in Hussle’s possession, which led to a dispute. Around that time, Hussle “released a “diss song” entitled “U Don’t Got a Clue,” which “defendant HENLEY perceived to be about and targeting defendant HENLEY.”
After the song’s release, Henley allegedly went to “discipline” Hussle for the rap song, but Hussle’s brother “refused to allow” it, according to the indictment.
Hussle was killed in 2019 by a fellow member of the Rollin’ 60s.
Federal authorities have likened Henley’s “Big U Enterprise” to a “mafia-like organization” that relied on his “stature and long-standing association with the Rollin’ 60s and other street gangs to intimidate businesses and individuals” in L.A.
Following a yearslong FBI investigation, federal authorities last year accused Henley of kidnapping and fatally shooting a young rapper in the face and leaving his body in the Las Vegas desert over perceived disrespect as well as directing the robbery of an unlicensed L.A. marijuana dispensary that had stopped making extortion payments.
Henley also allegedly defrauded companies, donors, athletes and celebrities — including NBA star Draymond Green and Lakers legend Shaquille O’Neal — persuading them to donate to his charities and later allegedly transferring the money to his personal bank accounts.
