In the rap world, "stop snitching" is a powerful mantra - and the star known as The Game is one of its most popular proponents.
But the New York man who manages Game and other hip-hop heavyweights - Jimmy (Henchman) Rosemond - is named as an informer in court records, the Daily News has learned.
Rosemond has given information at least three times to state and federal law enforcement officials since the mid-1990s, documents reveal.
One of Rosemond's former lawyers even cited his repeated cooperation with the authorities in asking for leniency in a Los Angeles gun case.
He noted that Rosemond's dime-dropping helped Brooklyn prosecutors send a man to jail - exactly what the "stop snitching" campaign rails against.
Investigators say it's hypocrisy: Rosemond dishes when it suits him, yet makes a fortune off artists like Game (real name Jayceon Terrell Taylor), who titled a 2005 album "Stop Snitchin/Stop Lyin."
Another artist on the Czar Entertainment roster, Blood Raw, writes in his bio that he didn't cooperate after a drug bust because "I could never live and face my son knowing that I had snitched."
Rosemond's new lawyer, Jeffrey Lichtman, says his client is no snitch, no matter what's in court papers.
"The fact is that prosecutors later claimed he flat-out lied to them, and they weren't happy about it," said Lichtman, a top defense lawyer. He noted his client never signed a cooperation agreement.
"He met with [federal prosectors] for a single session, but there are plenty of reasons people meet with prosecutors. His lawyer at the time inflated what happened in an attempt to get a better sentence, and it didn't work."
This is what the court records show:
While Rosemond was held on a drug and gun case in North Carolina in 1996, four inmates plotted a jailbreak and asked him to join. He alerted authorities and spent several days in solitary to avoid retribution, his lawyer at the time wrote in court papers obtained by The News from federal archives.
In 1997, facing bail-jumping charges in New York, Rosemond gave information about crooked jail officials who altered paperwork to let him post bail.
He made "several monitored phone calls to one of the correction officers,"but the target was suspicious and "reluctant to speak with Mr. Rosemond," court papers said.
A year later, federal prosecutors in Brooklyn contacted Rosemond, seeking his cooperation in what documents describe only as a "historical criminal investigation."
Rosemond was "debriefed at length by federal agents and prosecutors." The defendant was convicted at trial, "confirming the accuracy of his information provided by Mr. Rosemond to the government," his then-lawyer noted.
Before he was sentenced in the L.A. gun case in 2000, Rosemond's then-lawyer argued for leniency because of his "assistance." The judge gave him 19 months, citing only the prosecutors' delay in bringing the case.
Rosemond, a Brooklyn native who got his start as a party promoter, has a rap sheet that dates back to a bike theft when he was 16. In 2006, he got three years' probation for a fight with a disk jockey.
He may not be an angel, but Lichtman wants to make clear he's also not a rat. "Law enforcement has been targeting Rosemond for years, desperate to take him down. Ray Charles could see Rosemond has not been a cooperator and was never considered one by the government," Lichtman said. nydailynews.com
But the New York man who manages Game and other hip-hop heavyweights - Jimmy (Henchman) Rosemond - is named as an informer in court records, the Daily News has learned.
Rosemond has given information at least three times to state and federal law enforcement officials since the mid-1990s, documents reveal.
One of Rosemond's former lawyers even cited his repeated cooperation with the authorities in asking for leniency in a Los Angeles gun case.
He noted that Rosemond's dime-dropping helped Brooklyn prosecutors send a man to jail - exactly what the "stop snitching" campaign rails against.
Investigators say it's hypocrisy: Rosemond dishes when it suits him, yet makes a fortune off artists like Game (real name Jayceon Terrell Taylor), who titled a 2005 album "Stop Snitchin/Stop Lyin."
Another artist on the Czar Entertainment roster, Blood Raw, writes in his bio that he didn't cooperate after a drug bust because "I could never live and face my son knowing that I had snitched."
Rosemond's new lawyer, Jeffrey Lichtman, says his client is no snitch, no matter what's in court papers.
"The fact is that prosecutors later claimed he flat-out lied to them, and they weren't happy about it," said Lichtman, a top defense lawyer. He noted his client never signed a cooperation agreement.
"He met with [federal prosectors] for a single session, but there are plenty of reasons people meet with prosecutors. His lawyer at the time inflated what happened in an attempt to get a better sentence, and it didn't work."
This is what the court records show:
While Rosemond was held on a drug and gun case in North Carolina in 1996, four inmates plotted a jailbreak and asked him to join. He alerted authorities and spent several days in solitary to avoid retribution, his lawyer at the time wrote in court papers obtained by The News from federal archives.
In 1997, facing bail-jumping charges in New York, Rosemond gave information about crooked jail officials who altered paperwork to let him post bail.
He made "several monitored phone calls to one of the correction officers,"but the target was suspicious and "reluctant to speak with Mr. Rosemond," court papers said.
A year later, federal prosecutors in Brooklyn contacted Rosemond, seeking his cooperation in what documents describe only as a "historical criminal investigation."
Rosemond was "debriefed at length by federal agents and prosecutors." The defendant was convicted at trial, "confirming the accuracy of his information provided by Mr. Rosemond to the government," his then-lawyer noted.
Before he was sentenced in the L.A. gun case in 2000, Rosemond's then-lawyer argued for leniency because of his "assistance." The judge gave him 19 months, citing only the prosecutors' delay in bringing the case.
Rosemond, a Brooklyn native who got his start as a party promoter, has a rap sheet that dates back to a bike theft when he was 16. In 2006, he got three years' probation for a fight with a disk jockey.
He may not be an angel, but Lichtman wants to make clear he's also not a rat. "Law enforcement has been targeting Rosemond for years, desperate to take him down. Ray Charles could see Rosemond has not been a cooperator and was never considered one by the government," Lichtman said. nydailynews.com
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