The rumor would presumably help him because it would discourage his clients from committing crimes, because they would be under additional scrutiny from law enforcement. It seems unlikely that it would actually matter though, since law enforcement already has a database of convicted felons that they go to first for crimes.
>The rumor would presumably help him because it would discourage his clients from committing crimes,
That rumor would most likely discourage people from becoming clients in the first place.
While "getting out of the building" and talking to our assumed target demo, one of the reservations people had was the belief that we were working in concert with law enforcement.