Gang intervention worker charged with robbing rapper

A gang intervention worker once held up as model of reform was charged today with robbing a well-known rapper at the Universal City Hilton earlier this month.

Marlo Jones, aka "Bow Wow," is charged with one felony count each of robbery and first-degree burglary with the special allegation that the crime was to further a street gang, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Paul Nunez with the Hardcore Crime Division.

Jones, 30, was a contract employee with the Unity One gang-intervention program and had worked with USC football coach Pete Carroll in his gang-violence-reduction efforts. But prosecutors allege he committed the crime to further the Grape Street Crips, one of South L.A.’s most notorious gangs.

Police: Rapper was robbed

Los Angeles police identified the man who allegedly was robbed by a Los Angeles anti-gang worker as a member of the rap group Bone Thugs-n-Harmony.

On Jan. 5, Byron McCane, also known as Bizzy Bone, had returned from a restaurant to his room at the Universal Hilton, where he was confronted by several men who beat and choked him before taking his jewelry, police said.

McCane was an original member of the group that began in Cleveland in 1991. He did not contribute to the group's last album, "Strength and Loyalty," which was released in 2007.