Crips leader, music label owner and purported anti-gang activist hit with more federal charges, including soliciting witness murder

Date: July 29, 2026

Contact: newsroom@ci.irs.gov

Los Angeles – A jailed South Los Angeles gang leader, music label owner, and purported anti-gang activist awaiting a federal trial was charged today with seven additional federal felonies, including that he solicited two fellow jail inmates to murder or seriously injure a witness against him and attempting to tamper with that witness’s testimony.

Eugene Henley, Jr., a.k.a. “Big U,” of the Hyde Park area of Los Angeles and who has been in federal custody since March 2025, previously was charged with dozens of felonies, including racketeering conspiracy, wire fraud, robbery, extortion, and tax evasion.

A federal grand jury today charged Henley – a long-time member of the Rollin’ 60s Neighborhood Crips street gang – with seven additional felonies: two counts of solicitation to commit a crime of violence, two counts of tampering with a witness, victim, or an informant, one count of conspiracy to transport an individual in interstate commerce with intent that the individual engage in prostitution, and two counts of wire fraud.

Henley and six other defendants charged in this case are scheduled to go to trial in February 2027. 

Since last year, Henley has been charged with operating what prosecutors call the “Big U Enterprise,” a racketeering organization that used his stature and long-standing association with the Rollin’ 60s to extort businesses and individuals, traffic and exploit sex workers, and defraud donors, lenders, and a federally funded anti-gang charity. Henley is also accused in the underlying racketeering conspiracy charge with the January 2021 murder of an aspiring musician, R.W., in Las Vegas.

According to the superseding indictment returned today, on June 10, 2026, Henley asked two inmates about the layout of a housing unit where he believed a witness, identified in the indictment as “Victim-1,” was being held. Henley offered to pay the inmates to kill or harm Victim-1 to prevent Victim-1 from testifying at trial against members of Henley’s criminal enterprise.

Henley also is charged with paying co-defendant Armani Aflleje, a.k.a. “Mani,” of Koreatown, to transport women across state lines to engage in prostitution. In November 2022, he paid Aflleje $1,000 via Zelle to rent a car to transport the women from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. Aflleje sent text messages to Henley of photographs of the women she was transporting. The following week, Henley sent Aflleje an additional $500 for the trip.

From November 2022 to January 2023, Henley and Aflleje schemed to rent vehicles and locate women on multiple occasions to engage in prostitution.

Henley is further charged with submitting in June 2020 a false and fraudulent application for a COVID-19 pandemic business-relief loan under the Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program for his business, Celebrity Socks. The false statements concerned the business’s gross revenue and the costs of goods sold for the business for the 12-month period preceding the pandemic.

The superseding indictment returned today also adds new overt acts to the indictment’s racketeering conspiracy charge. These acts include the following allegations:

• In 2014, Henley and his associates assaulted and chased a Grammy-winning recording artist through Los Angeles International Airport to collect a debt and for failing to show respect;
• Henley embezzled in 2019 additional charitable donations intended for Developing Options, his federally funded anti-gang nonprofit;
• Henley in March 2023 prepared to provide false information to a court and a county prosecutor to fabricate an individual’s employment with Developing Options; 
• In June and July of 2020, Henley sought and was denied additional COVID-19 pandemic-relief loans on behalf of Developing Options; and
• In February 2023, Henley threatened to shut down a cannabis business unless its owner paid Henley and co-defendant Sylvester Robinson, a.k.a. “Vey,” of Northridge.

If convicted, Henley would face a statutory maximum sentence of life in federal prison for the racketeering conspiracy count. The newly added witness tampering counts carry an additional statutory maximum of life in federal prison on each count. 

The FBI’s Los Angeles Metropolitan Task Force on Violent Gangs; IRS Criminal Investigation; the United States Department of Justice Office of Inspector General; the Los Angeles Police Department; and the North Las Vegas Police Department are investigating this matter.

Assistant United States Attorneys Kevin J. Butler and Jena A. MacCabe of the Major Crimes Section are prosecuting this case. 

IRS-CI is the law enforcement arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. It is the only federal law enforcement agency with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code. IRS-CI has 18 field offices located across the U.S. and maintains an international presence through attaché posts abroad.