Suspect Held in Businessman’s September Slaying : Murder: A free-lance grocery warehouse ‘swamper’ is charged in point-blank shooting of man in busy intersection.

A Paramount man has been charged with the murder in September of a 35-year-old Orange County businessman, who was shot at midmorning at a busy intersection here.

Police investigators allege Benjamin Jimenez, 27, killed Steven Leroy Henry of Rancho Santa Margarita on Sept. 24 with several rounds from a handgun at point-blank range as Henry sat in his pickup at Knott and Orangethorpe avenues.

Prosecutors charged in Municipal Court in Fullerton on Monday that Jimenez lay in wait and killed Henry for financial gain, special circumstances that could mean the death penalty for Jimenez if he is found guilty of those charges, Deputy Dist. Atty. Pat Donahue said.

Donahue said prosecutors will meet this week to decide whether to press for the death penalty or life in prison without parole during Jimenez’s trial.

Donahue declined to discuss the evidence that supports the special circumstance charges. But police investigators believe a possible motive in the killing was Jimenez’s dissatisfaction over Henry’s growing control over so-called “swampers,” men who are hired by the day to unload trucks at several local grocery store warehouses, Buena Park Sgt. Terry Branum said.

Police investigators believe that Jimenez, arrested Friday in Los Angeles on a murder warrant, was a free-lance swamper who did not work under Henry.

Henry managed West Coast Unloading, which controlled work at several local supermarket warehouses. The organization provided workers’ compensation and liability insurance at work sites and withheld taxes on workers’ wages, police said.

A swamper’s pay dropped from about $100 to about $80 for each tractor-trailer unloaded because of the taxes and insurance payments that Henry required, Branum said.

“It appears there were some hard feelings over the $20 that was subtracted from the fee,” said Branum, who added that Henry had received death threats related to his business dealings.

“If you didn’t go with Henry’s group, you essentially were out of a job and (Henry) was absorbing several warehouses,” Branum said.

Henry began West Coast Unloading in 1987 with an account with the Lucky supermarket chain, which has warehouses in Buena Park and Irvine. Henry also handled the Food for Less warehouse in La Habra. Within the week before his death, he had closed deals with Vons in San Diego and Ontario and was about to acquire a contract with the Hughes warehouse in Irvine, according to his lawyer, Richard Rockwell.

Henry was gunned down about 10:30 a.m., just a quarter of a mile from the Lucky warehouse in Buena Park where he was headed for a daily check on his workers.

While Henry sat alone in his pickup truck waiting for a signal light, a passenger got out of a car parked in front of him, walked back to Henry’s truck, shot several times through the driver’s side window, then walked around the truck and fired again through the passenger side window, police said.

The gunman then returned to his car and fled with another man, police said. Buena Park police said the investigation into the killing is continuing.

Los Angeles police officers coincidentally arrested Jimenez on Friday after they saw him and another man acting suspiciously in South Los Angeles, Branum said.

When the officers approached, they checked to see if there were any warrants out for Jimenez and found one had been issued the day before in Orange County.

Jimenez was transported to Orange County Jail in Santa Ana, where he was being held Tuesday without bail. He is scheduled for arraignment in Municipal Court in Fullerton on Dec. 18, Donahue said.