Accused gang leader Damion (World) Hardy wanted to kill Mike Tyson: witnesses

Reputed drug kingpin Damion (World) Hardy and Mike Tyson nearly had a fight to the death over the murder of the former boxing champ’s childhood friend, government witnesses told a Brooklyn jury.

 

They each put bounties on the other’s head sometime after the June 2000 killing of Tyson’s longtime chum and security guard, Darryl (Homicide) Baum, according to the snitches. Baum was shot to death in a drug-related dispute.

Hardy, who was once engaged to marry rapper Lil’ Kim, is charged with six murders and racketeering.

 

Testifying at his trial in Brooklyn Federal Court last week, Allen (Boo) Bryant and Shelby (Moo) Henderson said they were against whacking Tyson even though he allegedly had laid out $50,000 for the contract on Hardy’s life.

“Moo spoke the loudest, saying Mike Tyson was Muslim and we shouldn’t kill a Muslim,” Bryant said.

But Hardy was unmoved by that argument. “World said, ‘I’m a Muslim and he (Tyson) put the money up,’" Bryant said. “World was saying it (Tyson’s religion) didn’t matter.”

He continued. “If World would have called us, we would have did it,” Bryant said, referring to the preemptive hit on Tyson.

Henderson thought the idea of killing Tyson was outrageous, but that wouldn’t have stopped it from happening. “It was kill or be killed . . . I felt they (World and his crew) had a right to defend themselves,” Henderson said.

The witnesses are former associates of Cash Money Brothers, the violent drug crew headed by Hardy from the late 1990s until he was arrested in 2004.

The crew controlled crack sales around the “L.G.” — the Lafayette Gardens housing project in Bedford-Stuyvesant.

Hardy allegedly went on a killing spree to avenge the murder of his brother Myron (Wise) Hardy.

Tyson’s pal Baum had nothing to do with that slaying; Henderson said Baum tried to force a member of Cash Money Brothers known as “Taz” to sell drugs for him.

Tyson’s alleged bounty on Hardy also marked “Taz” for death, the witnesses said.

In earlier testimony, Henderson said they had actually scoped out a Range Rover parked on Atlantic Ave. near the Bedford-Atlantic Armory Men’s Shelter and it was believed Tyson was a passenger in the vehicle.

“Taz was trying to get (another Cash Money Brothers member) to murder him (Tyson),” Henderson said.

A spokeswoman for Tyson did not return a call seeking comment, but Tyson has previously denied that he put a contract on Hardy.

Cash Money Brothers got its name from the Wesley Snipes film “New Jack City.”