Guard gave shot dying man wrong directions to subway
By Laurel Babcock and Rich Calder
February 11, 2014 | 7:38pm
A Bronx security guard testified Tuesday that he watched in horror in 2009 as an associate of 50 Cent’s rap group G-Unit was shot— and then accidentally gave the badly wounded man wrong directions to the subway after he staggered up to him seeking aid.
“I wasn’t thinking clearly. I was thinking about my own situation. I was basically scared,” Claude Crooks, 35, told a Manhattan federal jury.
Prosecutors in the murder-for-hire trial of fallen hip-hop mogul James “Jimmy Henchman” Rosemond had asked Crooks why he pointed in the wrong direction when a bloodied Lowell Fletcher approached him and uttered, “Where’s the nearest train station?”
Crooks, who was subpoenaed by the feds, said he ran away after the shooting and that the 33-year-old Fletcher found him minutes later a few blocks away — just a block from the Mount Eden 4-train station. Fletcher would collapse and die after running a few blocks in the wrong direction.
Fletcher, who was lured into the ambush, was so surprised that he dropped a bag of “chips” he was carrying, Crooks added.
“I sensed danger so I crossed the street,” Crooks said. “I seen a young man appear out of nowhere, a bag of chips was dropped and shots were fired.”
Rosemond, 49 — who was sentenced to life in prison last year for running a multi-million dollar drug empire — and longtime associate Rodney Johnson are charged with orchestrating the murder of Fletcher, a member of the Bloods and an associate of G-Unit founders Tony Yayo and 50 Cent.
Prosecutors say Rosemond hired thugs to kill Fletcher as payback for Yayo slapping Rosemond’s then 14-year-old son two years earlier.
Crooks described the shooter as “a strange man wearing all black, a hoodie over his head.” He claims not to have seen his face or even the actual gun.
“I just saw the shooter extend his arm. I heard shots, I heard whistles toward my ear,” said Crooks, adding that cops initially questioned whether he was personally connected to the crime.
Prosecutors say the shooter is Derrick “D” Grant, one of four Rosemond goons who are now cooperating with the feds to avoid life in prison.
