From Inside Bay Area:

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Former notorious drug lord gunned down
By Harry Harris and, William Brand, STAFF WRITERS
Article Last Updated:12/03/2006 02:33:12 AM PST

OAKLAND - Rudolph "Rudy" Henderson, who at one time was considered one of Oakland's most powerful narcotics dealers, was shot to death Saturday, while sitting in a vehicle outside a North Oakland restaurant.

Two other people with him were not injured, police said. They drove him to Alta Bates hospital in Berkeley, where he died at 4:43 p.m. He was 57.

The slaying came eight months after Henderson's son, Rudolph Henderson Jr., 25, was shot to death in a car-jacking in East Oakland. At this point, police do not believe the killings are connected.

The shooting of Rudy Henderson Sr. occurred about 5 p.m. in the 800 block of 60th Street.

After completing a lengthy 1989 federal prison sentence for possession of cocaine, Henderson moved to Antioch and opened a used-car business. His son was in one of his used cars, a 1992 Lexus, in the 7000 block Hamilton Street, when he was killed March 23.

Police said Henderson Sr. recently had moved from Antioch to Richmond. For several years in the 1980s, Rudolph Sr. was regarded as Oakland's biggest drug dealer.

Those years made him a wealthy man. At one point, he owned a lavish Sonoma County ridge-top estate with a 6,400-square-foot mansion.

He rose to prominence in the narcotics world, investigators said, when he took over the Oakland cocaine trade after notorious drug lord Felix Mitchell was sent to prison in 1985.

Henderson was indicted by a federal grand jury following a massive three-county
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raid in 1987. The search hit 20 addresses, using information obtained from a court-approved wire tap on phones at a North Oakland house that federal agents said was the nerve center of Henderson's drug operation.

In one of the searches, at a Danville address, officers found firearms and what appeared to be a ledger of drug sales.

Henderson was indicted on 29 counts of selling cocaine and illegal weapons possession. He also was charged with operating a continuing criminal enterprise, which carried a potential life sentence.

In January 1989, he changed his plea to guilty of cocaine possession in a plea bargain. He agreed to hand over his million-dollar Sonoma County estate and his vintage automobile collection to the feds. Money from the sale was used to offset $512,000 in income taxes Henderson owed, the government said.

He was sentenced in April 1989 to 25 years in prison and fined $200,000. His sister, Carolyn, and four other members of his operation were sentenced the same day.