Attorneys for Eugene “Big U” Henley took a big swing when it came to the timing of his upcoming RICO trial, but ended up settling for something more realistic.
On Wednesday (Nov. 4), Henley appeared at a hearing in Los Angeles federal court to discuss the request his team made last month to push back the trial’s start date from February 16, 2027, to October 19, 2027.
At Wednesday’s hearing, Henley’s attorneys amended the request, asking instead for a start date of April 27. Judge Fernando Aenlle-Rocha agreed.
Henley’s lawyers, who only joined the sprawling case in late September, had originally asked for the delay in order to have time to get up to speed.
"The trial is complex, the discovery is voluminous, and Mr. Henley is facing a possible sentence of life imprisonment," the attorneys wrote. "After a careful review of the landscape of this case, Counsel for Mr. Henley has concluded that they will need more time to prepare."
According to the filing, prosecutors turned over 42 batches of evidence totaling more than 1.1 million pages, 29,612 audio and video files, and approximately 219 gigabytes of data.
Prosecutors opposed the delay, claiming that any pushback caused a very real threat to witnesses, one of whom already had the word “rat” spray-painted on their home.
The most recent version of the charges against Henley, the former manager of Nipsey Hussle, includes allegations of a murder-for-hire plot against a witness.
The original criminal complaint against the 59-year-old — as well six co-defendants — alleges that Henley Jr. was involved in a huge array of criminal activities: extortion, kidnapping, fraud, embezzlement, prostitution, and even murder.
Federal authorities have alleged that Big U required professional athletes and musicians to "check in" with him when visiting Los Angeles to get "protection" from his "mafia-like organization." For more details about that, read our breakdown of how this case connects to the long-rumored practice of “checking in.”
