They called him Jimmy Henchman — the man with the Teflon reputation, tied for years to the feud that led to the murders of two legends of the hip-hop world. Related Rap Music Figure Convicted of Running Multimillion-Dollar Cocaine Ring (June 6, 2012) Connect with NYTMetro Follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook for news and conversation. But on Friday, officials in Manhattan said the man, James Rosemond, was being charged with arranging the murder of an associate of the rapper 50 Cent. The news came less than three weeks after Mr. Rosemond was convicted of running a multimillion-dollar cocaine ring. In an indictment announced on Friday, Mr. Rosemond, 47, was charged with conspiring with five other men to kill the associate, Lowell Fletcher, in 2009. “This has not been a good month for Jimmy the Henchman,” Raymond W. Kelly, the New York police commissioner, said in a statement. He said the murder of Mr. Fletcher had been retaliation for an assault on Mr. Rosemond’s son. Messages left for Mr. Rosemond’s lawyer were not returned. Mr. Rosemond, who ran a management company, Czar Entertainment, is perhaps best known for accusations that have trailed him since the killings of the rap music luminaries Tupac Shakur and Christopher Wallace, better known as the Notorious B.I.G., in the mid-1990s. Mr. Rosemond has denied involvement in the bitter feud that led to their shootings. Preet Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan, said Mr. Rosemond and the five other defendants had “operated like a mini-gang, allegedly committing a revenge killing, and a host of drug and firearms offenses.” A seventh man was also charged with firearms and narcotics offenses but not murder. Mr. Fletcher was shot to death on the evening of Sept. 27, 2009, near Jerome and Mount Eden Avenues in the Mount Eden neighborhood of the Bronx. Mr. Rosemond and another man hired at least two of the defendants to kill Mr. Fletcher in exchange for drugs, according to the indictment in United States District Court in Manhattan. Mr. Rosemond is in federal custody for drug trafficking. On June 5, he was convicted in Federal District Court in Brooklyn of running an operation that sold millions of dollars’ worth of cocaine, often transporting it across the country in cases designed for musical equipment. Nineteen people have been convicted on drug-trafficking and money-laundering charges as a result of the investigation into Mr. Rosemond’s activities.
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