HIP-HOP MOGUL GETS LIFE SENTENCE FOR DRUG RING AND ALLEGEDLY ARRANGED TUPAC’S DEATH

A former rap music executive who for years faced allegations that he was connected to infamous killings of two rap stars was sentenced to life in prison on Friday for running a multimillion-dollar drug empire.

The former executive, James Rosemond, known in hip-hop circles as Jimmy Henchman, was convicted in Federal District Court in Brooklyn last year of overseeing the distribution of scores of kilograms of cocaine per month and moving drugs and money from coast to coast in music crates.

  But Mr. Rosemond, who is from Brooklyn, is best known for rumors that have dogged him since the 1990s: that he arranged an attack on the rapper Tupac Shakur that led to an escalating feud between Mr. Shakur and Christopher Wallace, better known as the Notorious B.I.G., that eventually left both rappers dead and the music world stunned.
 

Mr. Rosemond has always denied involvement with that feud, and he has never been charged in connection with the accusations. The drug charges for which he was sentenced resulted from a separate inquiry by the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Internal Revenue Service.

In the courtroom on Friday, a prosecutor said that Mr. Rosemond had lived the stereotypical life of a kingpin, with several penthouse apartments, fancy cars, nice vacations and a sound system that cost more than $100,000.

Loretta E. Lynch, the United States attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in a statement that Mr. Rosemond had only styled himself a music mogul. “In reality,” she said, “his image as a music impresario was a cover for the real Jimmy Rosemond — a thug in a suit” who flooded the streets with cocaine.

Mr. Rosemond, 48, wearing a blue jumpsuit, declined to speak when the judge, John Gleeson, gave him an opportunity.

Judge Gleeson, who was required by law to hand down the life sentence, called Mr. Rosemond’s crimes astonishing in their breadth, duration and intensity, and said he would have sentenced Mr. Rosemond to life in prison even if he had not been required to. Mr. Rosemond also forfeited $10 million and property worth about $4 million.

A lawyer for Mr. Rosemond, David A. Bythewood, promised to appeal.

Mr. Rosemond still faces separate charges in Federal District Court in Manhattan that he helped arrange the murder of an associate of the rapper 50 Cent. Prosecutors there said that Mr. Rosemond conspired with five other men to kill the associate, Lowell Fletcher, in 2009. He is scheduled to go to trial on those charges on Nov. 18.