The criminal life of Darryl Henley, the NFL star sentenced to 40-years

Darryl Henley had realized his dream, of making a living playing in the NFL. He had ascended a mountaintop that few ever see, let alone reach, and threw it away with his involvement in organized crime. But how did it happen?

Darryl Henley was born in 1966, his parents, Tom and Dorothy were both smart, accomplished individuals who pushed their son in both academic and sporting fields.

From a young age, Henley was a standout football player, always athletic, he was able to get a scholarship to UCLA to play football. Whilst there he was a dedicated student, earning a 3.3 GPA along the way.

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After a standout 1988 season where Henley was nominated as a first-team All-American, the defensive back was selected in the second round by the LA Rams.

Henley was always renowned for his work ethic, pushing himself harder than his teammates in college and continuing to do so in the pros. He would regularly stay late in the weight room or on the track to put in the extra reps.

Henley’s extra work was paying off in the NFL, starting 54 of a possible 76 games and appearing in the other 22. Along the way, he intercepted 12 passes and made a name for himself as a very solid piece on the Rams' defense.

After six years in the NFL, Henley found himself arrested and later convicted of cocaine smuggling. Whilst he denied the charges, Tracy Donahoe, herself a key part of this operation, pointed the finger at Henley. Donahoe told the court Henley was the ringleader and financier of the drug ring.

Henley denied that he was the ringleader of this operation, arguing he merely gave his childhood friend some money to organize the drug smuggling but would never gain anything financially from the operation.

Given the lengthy trial and the appeal process, Henley had run out of money by this point. Whilst in prison, Henley was able to smuggle in a cell phone to communicate with his baby daughter and her mother, using his cell phone, he was put in contact with supposed mafia member Joey Gambino who roped Henley into a heroin deal he was organizing.

Gambino was aware of Henley’s financial situation, acknowledging he would not have been able to pay for his part of the heroin deal upfront. Instead, he offered to assassinate key witness Tracy Donahoe and the judge overseeing Henley’s trial, taking his stake in the drug deal as payment.

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Henley agreed to this scheme as he felt he had been hard done by, with the judge giving him the maximum 20-year sentence for his drug crimes. Henley would later say, “I did it purely for the money, I had a baby daughter.”

Unfortunately for Henley, Gambino wasn’t a mafia hitman, but rather an undercover Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent who had been recording his conversations with Henley and would later use them in court as evidence of the ex-NFL player’s ploy to murder Donahoe and the judge. This would add a further 21 years to his sentence.

Henley, now 56, is now held U.S. Penitentiary in Marion, Illinois, is contrite about his actions now, absolving his parents from any blame, stating, "You can't look at me and say, 'Oh, a product of the environment.' I have some pretty awesome parents and I was living a dream I worked my ass off for."

Henley seemed the model citizen in his early NFL career, working hard and striving to be the very best he could, but after some time in the league, he started to lose his way. His unmatched work ethic drifted as he had already achieved such heady heights. Soon he was partying until the early hours most nights and ended up hanging around a group he usually wouldn’t have meshed with.

As Henley said, "Ultimately I'm the one that's responsible for what's happened in my life, but I do think that 90 percent of it is due to the choices I made as far associations that I picked, chose. Associations with people who, at some point, I knew didn't have the same interests as I did. And when you compromise that, and you allow yourself to lose focus -- things can spiral downward.”

Whilst Henley has admitted his guilt, the circumstances around his case are still controversial. He was only given the initial 20 years due to the newly formulated ‘War on Drugs’, were he caught slightly earlier he would’ve received half that. There was also controversy around the jury selected with outspoken racism from one juror and one attempting to get Henley to bribe him for an ‘innocent’ verdict.

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