Larry Hoover is a name that resonates beyond the gangster underworld into mainstream American society. Hoover is a notorious thief, drug dealer, and murderer whose life is the stuff of fictional movies.
Larry Hoover Biography
Hoover was born on November 30, 1950, and raised in Jackson, Mississippi. His parents and the entire family moved to Chicago, Illinois in the hunt for a better life when he was just four years old. Hoover from a young age moved around with the wrong crowd making dangerous friends on the street.
At the age of 12, Hoover and his nefarious friends began calling themselves Supreme Gangsters, and being the pioneer of the group, Hoover was appointed leader once the group grew and expanded. In the crime world, he was simply known as “Prince Larry”.
Hoover decided to merge with a gang headed by rival David Barksdale who was a grade school dropout. The new amalgamation was known as the Black Disciple Nation. It was the 1973 murder of William Young that actually began Hoover’s long run-in with the law. On the 26th of February 1973, a 19-year-old William was kidnapped and later shot in Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood.
Larry Hoover was mentioned as the individual who ordered the killing and on the 16th of March 1973, Hoover and the killer Andrew Howard a Gangster Disciple were both arrested. After being arrested earlier in 1973, Hoover and Howard were charged in November 1973 with murder and were sentenced to 150 to 200 years in prison. Hoover was sent to serve out his prison sentence at the Statesville Correctional Center in Crest Hill of Illinois.
He earned a GED and the license of an emergency medical technician while in prison. In 1974 Hoover took control of the Gangster Disciples after the death of Barksdale as a result of kidney failure due to a previous gunshot.
In classic Machiavellian fashion, Hoover who was still operating from prison took over the reins of power and ran the single largest organized crime cartel from his prison cell. Under Hoover, The Gangster Disciples already had control of Chicago’s South Side. And from prison, Hoover helped the Gangster Disciples takeover the South Side drug trade and also added other gangs to the disciples which included Satan Disciples, Cash Disciples just to name a few.
From Prison, Hoover started a drug trade which began in Chicago before extending to all of the United States. But in the early months of 1993, Hoover did the unexpected by insisting that he had renounced and turned his back on his violent past to become an urban political celebrity in Chicago.
The Gangster Disciples now began earning fans and changed their modus operandi from violence and killing to charity events and peaceful projects. Larry Hoover changed the gang’s name from Gangster Disciples to Growth and Development. In 1995 it was estimated that Hoover’s gang had allegedly 30,000 members in about 35 states and earned around $100 million a year which when calculated was approximately $3,300.00 per member yearly.
Hoover was still incarcerated when a lengthy federal investigation culminated in another life sentencing in 1995. On the 22nd of August 1995, after a 17-year-old federal government undercover investigation came to an end, Hoover was indicted for both drug conspiracy and extortion and was apprehended at the Vienna Correctional Center by Federal agents and transferred to the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Chicago to stand trial in 1997.
After he was tried and found guilty, Hoover was sentenced to six life terms. He served his sentence at the United States Penitentiary Administrative which is a Maximum Facility in Florence, Colorado.
It was later discovered that the so-called nonprofit organizations he ran were all fronts to cover money laundering and in accordance with the testimony of fellow Gangster Disciples, none of the proceeds actually got around to helping anyone in need.
Larry Hoover Net Worth
As a result of his various shady dealings, it is a monumental effort to pin down all of Larry Hoover’s assets. The drug lord was an expert at money laundering and perfected the art of moving money around his various illicit activities. The fact that his 30,000-man strong gang recorded earnings of $3,300 each annually means his net worth can be estimated at 100 million dollars.
Son
Before his first conviction in 1973, Larry Hoover married Winndye Jenkins and the pair gave birth to two kids Larry Hoover Jr and Tyree Hoover.
How He Died?
Contrary to popular belief, Larry Hoover is not dead. Before his arrest, he fit the bill of the proverbial cat with nine lives. He survived scores of assassination attempts and is a veteran of many gang wars. Larry is alive and is serving a life sentence in a Maximum Facility in Colorado.
