A South L.A. gang extortion scheme. Three life sentences. A prison interview that went viral. Here is what the court […]
A South L.A. gang extortion scheme. Three life sentences. A prison interview that went viral. Here is what the court records actually say.
If you’ve landed on this page, you’ve probably come across the name Kobe Kincherlow somewhere — a TikTok video, a true crime thread, or maybe a YouTube interview filmed inside a California state prison. The question most people are asking is simple: what did Kobe Kincherlow do, exactly? The answer lives in court records, appellate opinions, and a story that cuts right to the heart of how gang extortion cases are prosecuted in Los Angeles.
Let’s break it all down.
Who Is Kobe Kincherlow?
Kobe Kincherlow, known by his street name “Big Sleep,” was a member of the Quetorius 102 subset of the East Coast Crips — commonly abbreviated as the Q102s — a gang operating in South Los Angeles whose territory stretched roughly between 99th Street/Century Boulevard to the north and 103rd Street to the south, bordered by Stanford Avenue to the east and Main Street to the west.
The East Coast Crips, according to trial testimony from the People’s own gang expert, had approximately 1,000 members in Los Angeles at the time, with documented primary activities including narcotics sales, weapons offenses, robbery, assault with firearms, attempted murder, and murder.
Kincherlow was not a low-level associate. He was a named defendant tried alongside co-defendants Jermaine Lewis (“Little Hitman”) and Justin Glen Smith (“Baby Hitman”) — Lewis’s younger brother — in a joint criminal trial that produced multiple felony convictions for each of them.
What Did Kobe Kincherlow Do? The Criminal Conduct
The case against Kincherlow centered on a gang-driven extortion and “taxing” scheme targeting legitimate and illegal businesses operating in South Los Angeles. The gang’s term for what they were doing was “taxing” — their own word for forcing local business owners to pay ongoing tribute money to continue operating in Q102 territory without being targeted for violence.
One of the primary targets was a marijuana grow house. Court records describe how Lewis and Kincherlow directly approached the grow house owner after weeks of surveillance, informing him that he would need to reach a financial agreement with the gang as compensation for pulling a weapon on a fellow gang member. The owner agreed to pay five pounds of marijuana and $10,000 per month to the gang.
A go-between named Sanchez was supposed to facilitate the payments on behalf of the grow house owner. He kept procrastinating. When he finally did provide some money and marijuana to Kincherlow, the amount fell short of what was agreed. Kincherlow returned to collect — and events escalated from there. Within the span of roughly 30 minutes, Kincherlow and Lewis had already forced Sanchez to hand over more than $7,000 in cash before Smith and another gang member entered the office armed, ready to take the rest of what the gang believed it was owed.
The confrontation involved weapons, a rival gang challenge, and an offer of an M-15 rifle as collateral. It did not end quietly.
Kincherlow was convicted of multiple felonies connected to this scheme, including charges tied to extortion and gang enhancements under California law. The jury found the special gang allegations true, which dramatically increased his sentencing exposure. He was ultimately sentenced to three life sentences plus 106 years in California state prison.
The Legal Aftermath — Appeals, Habeas, and Federal Court
What did Kobe Kincherlow do after his conviction? He fought it in court. Multiple times.
Records show Kincherlow filed a notice of appeal in the California Court of Appeals, Second Appellate District, in February 2021, with a duplicate filing in March 2021 — the second of which was terminated as redundant. On October 4, 2021, he filed a federal petition for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, the case styled Kobe Kincherlow v. Warren L. Montgomery (2:21-cv-07984). This is the legal mechanism prisoners use when they believe their constitutional rights were violated during trial or sentencing.
The federal district court — presided over by Judge Jesus G. Bernal — ultimately dismissed the petition with prejudice and denied a certificate of appealability. Kincherlow then appealed to the Ninth Circuit (case 22-55554). As of the most recently available docket information, his legal efforts to overturn the conviction have not succeeded.
He is currently incarcerated at Calipatria State Prison in Imperial County, California.
The “Between the Lines” Interview — What Kincherlow Said Himself
In October 2024, Kincherlow sat down for a recorded interview with Between the Lines, a nonprofit organization that conducts in-depth interviews with incarcerated individuals. The interview — filmed inside Calipatria on October 9, 2024 — was later published on YouTube and drew significant attention online.
In the interview, Kincherlow spoke candidly about his years inside, his mental approach to a sentence that effectively guarantees he will die in prison absent a successful appeal, and the power of mindfulness and meditation as tools for coping with incarceration. He acknowledged that not everyone can be reached with a message of change, but argued that does not mean you stop trying.
“We cannot change everyone,” he said in substance, “but that does not mean we stop speaking.” His focus on those willing to listen, rather than wasting energy on those who are not, resonated with a significant online audience — particularly on TikTok, where clips from the interview and related storytelling videos gained tens of thousands of views. Many viewers, unfamiliar with the criminal case underneath the message, began asking: what did Kobe Kincherlow do to end up there in the first place?
Why This Case Is Legally Significant
The People v. Lewis appellate opinion — which covers Kincherlow’s case as a co-defendant — touches on several points that criminal defense attorneys and legal observers still reference today.
First, it illustrates how aiding and abetting and conspiracy liability can extend to crimes that seem removed from a defendant’s direct participation. The court’s analysis of whether robbery of a firearm was a “reasonably foreseeable consequence” of a conspiracy to extort is a textbook example of how California courts apply the natural and probable consequences doctrine.
Second, the gang enhancements added under California Penal Code § 186.22 are what transformed an already serious case into a sentence measured in centuries. This is the kind of sentence that California’s ongoing criminal justice reform efforts — including SB 1437 (felony murder reform) and attempts to modify gang enhancement statutes — continue to wrestle with.
Third, Kincherlow’s habeas petition being dismissed with prejudice demonstrates just how difficult it is for a state prisoner to obtain federal relief. The bar under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) is extraordinarily high. Federal courts do not re-try state cases — they only intervene when a constitutional violation is clear and the state court’s decision was “contrary to, or an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law.”
FAQs About What Kobe Kincherlow Did
Q: What crimes was Kobe Kincherlow convicted of? A: Kincherlow was convicted of multiple felonies connected to an extortion scheme operated by the Q102 subset of the East Coast Crips in South Los Angeles. These included charges related to extortion (“taxing”), robbery, and related gang-enhancement offenses.
Q: How long is Kobe Kincherlow’s sentence? A: He is serving three life sentences plus 106 years at Calipatria State Prison in California.
Q: What is Kobe Kincherlow’s gang name? A: His street name within the East Coast Crips was “Big Sleep.”
Q: Has Kobe Kincherlow’s appeal been successful? A: Not as of the most recently available public records. His federal habeas petition was dismissed with prejudice by the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, and a certificate of appealability was denied.
Q: Where is Kobe Kincherlow now? A: He is currently incarcerated at Calipatria State Prison in Imperial County, California.
Q: Why did Kobe Kincherlow go viral online? A: A 2024 interview filmed for the nonprofit Between the Lines, in which Kincherlow discussed meditation, mindset, and the nature of reaching people with a positive message despite incarceration, circulated widely on TikTok and YouTube.
Q: What is the “taxing” that Kincherlow was involved in? A: “Taxing” is gang terminology for extortion — forcing local business owners to pay money to a gang in exchange for being left alone within that gang’s claimed territory. The People’s own gang expert used this definition at trial.
A Note on the Bigger Picture
Cases like Kincherlow’s are not uncommon in Southern California, but they are rarely understood by the public with any depth. Gang enhancement statutes, conspiracy liability, and AEDPA’s strict limitations on habeas review are three forces that together shape what justice actually looks like in these prosecutions — and whether convictions can ever be undone once they are handed down.
What did Kobe Kincherlow do? The record is clear. What it means — for sentencing policy, for gang prosecution tactics, and for a man spending the rest of his natural life inside Calipatria — is a question the American legal system is still, in its own slow way, working through.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. If you or someone you know needs legal representation in a criminal matter, consult a licensed attorney in your jurisdiction.
