NEW YORK (CelebrityAccess) — James Rosemond, better known in the music world as Jimmy the Henchman, was sentenced to life plus 30 years in prison for ordering the murder of Lowell Fletcher, AKA Lodi Mack.
A jury convicted Rosemond of murder-for-hire, conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire, and firearms offenses following a nine-day retrial before United States District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan.
Rosemond, who founded the rap music management company Czar Entertainment, managed a roster of some of the biggest names in hip-hop, including The Game, Sean Kingston, Brandy, Gucci Mane, Guerilla Black, Salt-n-Pepa and Akon.
In 2007, members and associates of a rival rap music group known as “G-Unit,” including Marvin “Tony Yayo” Bernard, and Lowell “Lodi Mack” Fletcher assaulted Rosemond’s son, James Rosemond Jr.
While James Jr. was not seriously injured in the assault, Fletcher ended up serving prison time as a result.
After he was released in 2009, James Rosemond recruited a crew of men to murder Fletcher upon his release from prison by promising at least $30,000 in payment for killing Fletcher.
On September 27, 2009, the group lured Fletcher to a secluded location in the Bronx killed him with a silenced .22 caliber pistol. A month later, Jimmy the Henchman paid the crew off with a kilo of cocaine with an estimated $30,000 on the street, prosecutors said.
Rosemond’s first trial on the murder for hire charges ended in a mistrial but he was subsequently convicted at the end of 2014.
At the time he was charged in connection with the murder for hire plot, Rosemond was already facing significant legal woes. Rosemond’s entertainment empire came crashing down in 2010 when he was arrested on charges of cocaine trafficking, money laundering, and witness tampering in connection with a major drug trafficking operation known as the Rosemond Organization, that moved drugs from Los Angeles to New York, sometimes using road cases shipped to recording studios.
Rosemond was convicted for his role in the drug trafficking ring in 2013 and sentenced to life imprisonment.
