Shrimp Boy and the Senator

[pazman]

http://news.yahoo.com/fbi-sting-shows-san-francisco-chinatown-underworld-201940947.html;_ylt=ApxPaunTvdK5uNNlNpX_9FbQtDMD;_ ylu=X3oDMTBsbzR0bHJyBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMyBHNlYwNzcg--


FBI sting shows San Francisco Chinatown underworld
Associated Press By GARANCE BURKE

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Beneath the strings of red paper lanterns and narrow alleyways of the nation's oldest Chinatown lies a sinister underworld, according to an FBI criminal complaint that has stunned even those familiar with the neighborhood's history of gambling houses, opium dens and occasional gangland-style murders.

The federal charges, which allege a California lawmaker accepted money and campaign donations in exchange for providing official favors and helping broker an arms deal, cast harsh light on Chinatown's tight-knit network of fraternal organizations and one of its most shadowy characters, Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow.

Investigators say Chow is the leader — the dragonhead — of one of the most powerful Asian gangs in North America. Chow's gang is said to have lured state Sen. Leland Yee into its clutches through money and campaign contributions in exchange for legislative help, as Yee sought to build his campaign coffers to run for California secretary of state.

Born in Hong Kong in 1960, Chow came to the United States at 16 and was reportedly nicknamed "Shrimp Boy" by his grandmother, in part due to his small stature.

After dropping out of high school, Chow rose within the ranks of the local Hop Sing Tong gang after he and his crew survived a 1977 shooting at a Chinatown restaurant that left five dead and about a dozen people injured.

Chow then spent a few years inside San Quentin Prison for a robbery conviction, and after his release, he started working with the Hong Kong-based Wo Hop To triad, one of numerous Chinese underground societies linked to organized crime. Chow has admitted that as a gang leader, he ran prostitution rings, smuggled drugs and extorted thousands of dollars from business owners in the 1980s.

"He was given like an unofficial position of being a leader, but to say he was sophisticated, no. He was more like a forceful brute," said Ignatius Chinn, a former California Department of Justice agent who spent years investigating Chow in the early 1990s. "If he didn't get his way, he would just beat the door down and that was how we put cases on him."

Although he ultimately was convicted of gun charges and sentenced to 25 years to life in the 1990s, Chow cut a deal to win release and returned Chinatown several years ago, pledging to stay straight. His work with at-risk youth soon won accolades from prominent politicians. But the complaint alleges that Chow used his position as the dragonhead of the Ghee Kung Tong to launder money, receive and transport stolen property and traffic in contraband cigarettes during a FBI sting.

Longtime residents and observers said the startling allegations revealed the continued presence of organized crime in the popular tourist attraction and home to one of the largest Chinese communities outside Asia.

"Chinatown is a very safe place and usually the crime you hear about there is just robberies and people being taken advantage of," said Joseph Leung, editor for the San Francisco edition of The Sing Tao Daily, the largest circulation Chinese newspaper in the U.S. "That's why this is all so shocking."

The pre-dawn FBI raid Wednesday at the Ghee Kung Tong's office, next to a massage parlor and across from a benevolent society where elderly people play Mah Jong, also brought into focus its centuries-old history. The tong was founded in the late 1880s to support immigrants from Hong Kong and elsewhere in the Pearl Delta region.

Amid morning rain showers Wednesday, federal agents and fire crews stormed the building armed with a circular saw and jaws of life to crack a safe that authorities say was at least a century old.

The organization is among dozens of active tongs, or family associations, in Chinatown, and Chow assumed control when its former president, Allen Leung, was shot to death by a masked gunman at his import-export store in 2006, said David Lee, director of the Chinese American Voters Education Committee.

"The killer was never caught and there was speculation that Shrimp Boy may have had something to do with it," said Lee, who also teaches political science at San Francisco State University. "He kind of became like a gangster celebrity. He was on parole, he had an ankle bracelet and he became a fixture at political events for a while."

The 137-page complaint, whose many twists are reminiscent of "American Hustle," does not reveal whether Yee had any connection to Chow before the FBI got involved.

Yee, a progressive Democrat born in China, built his political fortune partly through Chinatown connections and had never lost a race until his failed bid for San Francisco mayor in 2011.

A few years before that, Chow's own political star began rising. Around 2008, he began meeting with at-risk youth to talk with kids about how to stay on the straight and narrow, said Rudy Corpuz Jr., executive director of the youth-led violence prevention organization United Playaz.

"He wasn't just the average guy on the street corner when he had that life, he was somebody you wouldn't mess with. And he's little so people were like, '****, that little guy had that much power?" said Corpuz Jr., who said Chow's redemption story helped change hundreds of young lives for the good.

Soon, the awards started coming. Chow was lauded by U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California for his work as a former offender who had become a community role model, and praised by San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee for his "willingness to give back to the community." He posted pictures of himself on Facebook with Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom.

All the while he was running a criminal operation, according to court documents.

Several years ago, undercover FBI agents assigned to Chow infiltrated the organization, and ultimately snared Yee and his campaign consultant Keith Jackson.

The three were arrested Wednesday during a series of raids in Sacramento and the San Francisco Bay Area that also netted additional members of the tong.

Yee, free on $500,000 bail, withdrew Thursday from the race for secretary of state. Chow was denied bail because he was deemed a flight risk and a danger to the public. Jackson was denied bail, too.

"This is a very active criminal enterprise, and we won't see this one very busy for the near future," Chinn said.

Yee's allies, however, questioned why the senator had been targeted in the elaborate sting and cautioned that he was innocent until proven guilty.

Leland always told me to be careful about taking money from the family associations, because you never know where the money is coming from. This kind of flies in the face of what he has told me," said Wayne Lee, a Yee protege who is mayor of the nearby suburb of Millbrae. "He's always been a champion for the downtrodden. I am hoping that he will be vindicated."

[wenshu]

http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?53389-Songshan-Shaolin-Temple-Day&p=1264032#post1264032

[crazychang]

yeah organised crime is real big, even if the public don't even know about it.

Hong Kong and japan have amongst the highest per capita gang membership in the developed world.

[SoCo KungFu]

Looks like ***** boy decided pedophilia and pushing underage prostitutes no longer gets his jollies up.

http://www.npr.org/2014/03/29/296022715/the-story-of-calif-senators-arrest-reads-like-pulp-fiction?utm_medium=facebook&utm_source=npr&utm_campaign=nprnews&utm_content=03292014

[Vash]

Yee will continue to receive his $95,291 annual Senate salary.

1. These guys get almost $100k a year?

2. Chow is real

[Syn7]

Did anyone actually believe that Chow was reformed? This comes as no surprise.

[Kellen Bassette]

The real question is, "will Frank seize control during the power vacuum, and if so, who on the KFM boards will be punished first during his reign of terror?" :eek:

[pazman]

Frank dares to become the Mountain Lord?

[Kellen Bassette]

Organized crime aside, I got to give him some credit. He did say we have no idea how deep these tongs go...shortly after it's an international news story.
I would have never guessed that, but then again, I'm pretty far removed from the inner workings of China Town's underworld...

[wenshu]

The real question is, "will Frank seize control during the power vacuum, and if so, who on the KFM boards will be punished first during his reign of terror?" :eek:

No, the real question is who is Snitch Boy going to give up when he turns state's evidence -

again.

[Syn7]

It's one thing when a civilian talks, they just want justice or to be safe etc...

But when a criminal turns, they are the lowest of the low.

[hskwarrior]

I was just sworn in as the mountain lord. what you have to say now?
try reading the affidavit you sorry ass bunch of forum dwellers

8175

[Kellen Bassette]

I was just sworn in as the mountain lord. what you have to say now?

It's a pretty sweet title...

[hskwarrior]

well, its mine now.

[GeneChing]

...a walking tour - brilliant. :p


A San Francisco restaurant walking tour of the Leland Yee Saga (http://insidescoopsf.sfgate.com/blog/2014/03/27/a-san-francisco-restaurant-walking-tour-of-the-leland-yee-saga/)
Posted on 03/27/2014 at 10:04 am by Paolo Lucchesi in Controversy, featured, Whimsy

http://insidescoopsf.sfgate.com/files/2014/03/628x4712-600x397.jpg
Senator Leland Yee greets people at the Tenderloin Harvest Party in San Francisco, Calif., Saturday, October 15, 2011. Photo: Sarah Rice, Special To The Chronicle

Yesterday, the events surrounding the arrest of State Sen. Leland Yee captivated the city of San Francisco. As reported by the Chronicle, Yee was arrested on charges that he conspired to traffic in firearms, among other stuff. He was one of 26 people involved in a five-year federal investigation that targeted Chinatown gangster Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow, whose apparent Facebook page is certainly worth a look. Please follow along the Chronicle’s ongoing coverage.

Just as fascinating for the public was the FBI’s extensively detailed federal affidavit (click here to view), detailing a shocking collection of allegations and complaints from undercover agents who infiltrated the network.

It reads like a crime novel, listing meetings after meetings throughout the city. Many of these meetings were alleged to have taken place in San Francisco restaurants. However, in most cases, the specific names of the restaurants were omitted. Was the business being conducted in a dingy diner, like the Greek did in the second season of The Wire? Did the meetings take place in an old school Italian red sauce joint like the famous Sollozzo/McClusky dinner in The Godfather?

These questions may go unanswered, but scattered throughout the 137-page affidavit are several San Francisco restaurant and hotel names (though in case it’s not obvious, it should be pointed out that the restaurants aren’t accused of doing anything wrong). Regardless, food and restaurants play a prominent role in the affidavit, from the revelation that “the placing of a black lion outside of the banquet restaurant [is] to send a message of intimidation to all other organizations that Chow’s organization was the oldest and strongest” (Page 31) to the time that two of Chow’s “people … hid their guns across the street in a restaurant bathroom” upon spotting police officers (Page 32). Also: Shrimp Boy.

In today’s Internet age, news seems to be fleeting, not unlike a sprightly hummingbird, but for those of who may want to relive the Leland Yee Saga in the coming weeks (and for those who asked for it via Twitter as we await a slew of San Francisco restaurants offering Shrimp Boy specials), Inside Scoop hereby presents: A Walking Tour of the San Francisco Restaurants Mentioned in the Shrimp Boy Federal Affidavit.

***

http://insidescoopsf.sfgate.com/files/2014/03/asian19_116_ls-600x399.jpg
Pedestrians walk past the New Asia restaurant on Monday, June 18, 2012 in San Francisco, Calif. Photo: The Chronicle

The place to start our merry adventure is at New Asia Restaurant (772 Pacific Avenue), the local restaurant that plays most prominently in the FBI’s complaint. Open for lunch and dinner, it’s a stately establishment in the heart of San Francisco’s Chinatown, and according to the affidavit, owner Hon Keung So hosted plenty of community events and is one of the folks ensnared in the charges. New Asia has a Type 47 liquor license, allowing for full liquor. So is accused of purchasing “purportedly stolen liquor from an FBI” undercover agent, which carries a charge of conspiracy to receive and transport stolen property in interstate commerce (Page 10-11 of the affidavit).

Between bites of dim sum, eagle-eyed diners should keep an eye out for Johnnie Walker Blue Label Scotch (From the complaint: “UCE 4599 sold 12 cases of Johnnie Walker Blue Label Scotch for $6,480 to Ma and So at the New Asia Restaurant in Chinatown, San Francisco.” Page 50), or perhaps even a framed proclamation on California State Senate letterhead that one of Senator Yee’s staff members is alleged to have presented during a March 2013 dinner (Page 121).

Oh, and of last night, New Asia was open for business.

http://insidescoopsf.sfgate.com/files/2014/03/YANKSING04b-C-24OCT01-PK-LH-600x399.jpg
Yank Sing. Photo: Liz Hafalia/The Chronicle.

From Chinatown, it’s about a 1.1 mile walk to Yank Sing in the Rincon Center (101 Spear Street), arguably the best dim sum spot in all of San Francisco. This Chinese restaurant is a great place for succulent Peking duck and excellent soup dumplings. All the white tablecloths are freshly laundered and ironed, which is perhaps the rationale behind the alleged Yank Sing meeting wherein “UCE 4599 arranged to meet Chow and Nieh to provide a payment to Chow for recent money laundering transactions” (Page 73).

http://insidescoopsf.sfgate.com/files/2014/03/portrestaurants07_ib_001-600x399.jpg
Waterbar at dusk with the Bay Bridge in the background in San Francisco. Photo: The Chronicle.

A block away is Waterbar (399 Embarcadero), one of the most beautiful restaurants in the city. It’s the best place to watch the Bay Bridge lights, and its $1 oyster promotion (everyday from 11:30am to 5;30pm) is an amazing Happy Hour deal. Speaking of big deals, the affidavit alleges that the undercover agent paid Keith Jackson a cool $10,000 at Waterbar on November 19, 2012: “Jackson stated that the money would be helpful in retiring Senator Yee’s campaign debt” (Page 116).

A few months later, the affidavit alleges that “UCE 4599, Senator Yee, and Keith Jackson had drinks at the Waterbar restaurant in San Francisco. This was Senator Yee’s first introduction to UCE 4599″ (Page 119). Maybe, given Yee’s apparent financial problems, they were taking advantage of Happy Hour!

http://insidescoopsf.sfgate.com/files/2012/06/dining30alexanders_00013_lh-600x397.jpg
Alexander’s Steakhouse in San Francisco. Photo: The Chronicle/Liz Hafalia

After the sea creature delights at Waterbar, it’s time for some red meat, so take a quick jaunt to Alexander’s Steakhouse (448 Brannan Street), a few blocks down in SoMa. You won’t find any bargains here, where the chef’s tasting menu starts at $160, but it’s a wonderful place for group dinners. That was surely the rationale on May 17, 2013, which is the date the affidavit alleges that “UCE 4180 and another FBI undercover employee, UCE-3357, posing as UCE 4180′s business partner, met with Keith Jackson, Senator Yee, and a guest of Senator Yee for dinner at Alexander’s Steakhouse in San Francisco. During the dinner, UCE 4180 discussed CHS#11′s offer to pay $10,000 to Senator Yee to reach out to State Senator 1 (Page 128).”

http://insidescoopsf.sfgate.com/files/2014/03/4910126-600x399.jpg
Roy’s. Photo: The Chronicle/Jerry Telfer

For dessert, Roy’s Restaurant (575 Mission Street) is one of the pioneers in Asian fusion cooking, a five-minute cab ride away. By this time, you probably missed the restaurant’s “Aloha Hour” but perhaps you’ll indulge your sweet tooth and try the tri-color carrot torte for dessert. It’s served with cream cheese buttercream, pineapple-orange marmalade and pineapple chips. It’s a slightly heavy dessert, not unlike the “heavy weapons” that Yee’s “unidentified Filipino associate” is alleged to have been supplying to rebel groups in the Philippines. That tidbit comes from a December 13, 2013 meeting at Roy’s: “UCE 4599 met with Keith Jackson and Brandon Jackson at Roy’s Restaurant, San Francisco, California. Keith Jackson said he had spoken to Senator Yee about setting up a meeting with a weapons trafficker … UCE 4599 handed Keith Jackson a white envelope containing $1,000. UCE 4599 told Keith Jackson the $1,000 was motivation for setting up the meeting with the weapons trafficker.” (Page 80)

http://insidescoopsf.sfgate.com/files/2014/03/Starbucks-Shareholders.JPEG-08c8d-600x406.jpg
Starbucks. AP Photo/Ted S. Warren

At this point, you’re probably beat, but if you’re up for a nightcap, head to the Starlight Room (450 Powell Street) in Union Square. It was on the way there that allegedly “UCE 4599 gave Chow an envelope containing $2,000″ (Page 45).

But if you want to skip the club, grab a room at the Marriot Marquis (780 Mission Street), just a short hop from Roy’s.

The Marriot Starbucks is the one of the most recurring meeting places in the affidavit. In particular, Yee himself — perhaps a fan of Frappuccinos, though that tidbit has not yet been confirmed by our Inside Scoop Gun-Trafficking/Beverage Pairings Team– is alleged to have met there several times, including on March 14, 2013: “[A]n FBI confidential human source (CHS#11) who was posing as a business associate of UCE 4773, introduced UCE 4180 to Senator Yee at a face-to-face meeting in a Starbucks at the Marriot Marquis hotel in San Francisco. UCE 4180 told Senator Yee and Jackson, who was also present, that he wanted to be the ‘Anheuser-Busch’ of medical marijuana” (Page 123).

And if you really want to get serious about retracing the footsteps of Shrimp Boy, there’s always Fisherman’s Wharf.


BTW, I merged pasman's 'News on the Mountain Lord' thread with SoCo KungFu's thread and kept SCK's title as it was less of an insider's title.

[TaichiMantis]

Just watched it! Then Colbert cleverly responded to a recent Twitter issue...;)

[SoCo KungFu]

I was just sworn in as the mountain lord. what you have to say now?

So you finally got that "making friends" Brownie badge?

[hskwarrior]

8177,,..........................

[bawang]

shrimp man is innocent. he is magical angel.

it was frank who framed him and took over position as mountain lard. the student has betray the master. the truf must be know

[hskwarrior]

it was frank who framed him and took over position as mountain lard. the student has betray the master. the truf must be know

yes, just like you did to your mother. She.....He i mean is with the Lard now.

[SoCo KungFu]

Says the fatass that believes in alien abductions and thinks he can see the future...

I'm not sure what's more revolting about you; your idiocy or the fact that you worship a limp dick Asian pedophile.

[hskwarrior]

you worship a limp **** Asian pedophile

you must be out of the closet. thinking about another mans Pen1s. nice. H0mo.
you worthless ass forum dwellin h0mo.


8180

SoCo is a flamin ho-mo/ suckin on tube steak in Slo-mo/
oh no/ he thinks he's a bad ass/ don't bend over or he'll try to grab that ass/
thinkin that he's tough for calling me a fat ass/
what a sad ass/ b1tch the only thing you do is make my nuts itch
(all the while wearing a karate gi claiming kung fu....yeah you!)


Says the fatass that believes in alien abductions and thinks he can see the future...

jealous cause you can't. hahahahahahahahahaha
GET OVER YOURSELF. YOU ARE NOT RELEVANT IN MY WORLD. YOUR WORDS ARE LIKE A BAD ASS GAS.....THEY STINK.....BUT EVENTUALLY IT FADES AWAY TO NOTHING.

[pazman]

Does being mountain lard entitle you to discounts on the underage hookers?

[hskwarrior]

Does being mountain lard entitle you to discounts on the underage hookers?

are you asking to see if i rival your prices? If i recollect correctly, "Lard" was the loving nickname your pops gave to your mother isn't it?
That's so sweeeeeet. I hear he put a sign above her bathtub saying "Tub of Lard". tho tweet

[SoCo KungFu]

That's cute, you've managed to write at a 3rd grade level.


GET OVER YOURSELF. YOU ARE NOT RELEVANT IN MY WORLD.

And yet, here you are.

Lets be real. Franky is nothing more than a fat, fake ass wannabe gangsta strutting around in a frog suit. Its amazing really, your infatuation with Jake Mace. At least that fraud is selling health. Which is more than you can say. Speaking of Mace, you seem to have an obsession for men. Projecting much?

At least when Soard was revealed to be a perv, all the SD clowns distanced. That you on the other hand emulate not only a career criminal, but the most abhorrent of such, says more about who you are than any half-assed insult I can throw your way. I guess you pervs stick together, eh?

You're so easy to play, you know that? I would have hoped you'd have gotten a clue by now. A quarter of a decade may have fixed your back, but that fall knocked you perpetually stupid.

[SoCo KungFu]

Does being mountain lard entitle you to discounts on the underage hookers?

He's not only the president, he's a client.

[bawang]

real kung fu triad gangster would have taken the fall and gone to prison for shrimp man due to ever lasting magical kung fu loyalty. you big poosy.

[pazman]

I think I know where this is heading. Shimb poy needs another snitch visa, or filthy 老外 gets sent back to Middle Kingdom.

[MarathonTmatt]

The whole world is run by gang violence. The biggest gangs are the ones who formed governments and colonized other nations. The Pope and the Vatican of Rome are the biggest crime lords perhaps in human history, and their history goes way back into the past, in what is now the Middle East region (thus their obsession for annexing it, aside from resources), then moving to Rome.

There is a Palestinian genocide happening right now (for many decades) because of the state of Israel. They have even put up a wall ("security fence.") Research a map of Palestinian land in the 1940's compared with now. They have lost 90% of their original lands. Many who lose lives are innocent civilians, children, etc.

Also notice how there is "tension" between the US President Obama and Russian president Vladimir Putin, yet they are both visiting the Vatican and kissing the Pope's ass. Watch the body language, the Pope is their Lord. But the media (owned by this same elite inside group) dupes people with a different image of the Pope, as some kind of Holy Man. He is nothing but a fraud and a treachery. World affairs, wars, bankruptcy, it's just "business" to thee people.

Also, who would drop nuclear bombs. Who would even think to create a nuclear bomb? It doesn't make any sense. What is more Satanic than dropping a nuclear bomb? I would like someone to give an answer to this, because I can't think of anything more Satanic than that. Yet it happened, Hiroshima was hit in the 1940's with a nuclear bomb, and guess who dropped it- the US President and his cabinet, that's who. If that is not Satanic than what is?!? And all you little children, making off-hand comments about "I hate this guy" or "that guy", don't know what you are fooling around with. Did you know that the definition of a Holocaust is "a burnt offering." So why would the history scribes call the genocide at the hands of the Nazi's a Holocaust? What is the real reason for this. Oh yeah, and Adolf Hitler kissed the Pope's ass just like anyone else, they're all in the same club. The world is run by Satanists, those of you who fool around with black magic and think you are so clever have another thing coming. Real Satanists are priests, judges, presidents, media network conglomerates, popes, world leaders. It would make sense that Ronald Reagan, a former Hollywood actor, would become a US president in the 1980's.

[hskwarrior]

8181[quote]

[hskwarrior]

At least when Soard was revealed to be a perv, all the SD clowns distanced. That you on the other hand emulate not only a career criminal, but the most abhorrent of such, says more about who you are than any half-assed insult I can throw your way. I guess you pervs stick together, eh?

You're so easy to play, you know that? I would have hoped you'd have gotten a clue by now. A quarter of a decade may have fixed your back, but that fall knocked you perpetually stupid.


wait, ok......WHAT AM I DOING TO EMULATE SHRIMP BOY? Did i shave my head and grow a mustache? Did i go out and buy a mercedes? I mean what do i do to emulate the man? This should be good since i know you don't know WTF you're talking about. Your unfounded sense of supremacy is hilarious as i know you are a Shaolin Do reject and probably one of soards victims.

this should provide me with a great belly laugh......

***** SOCO = Shaolin Do= one weak ass b1tch. i knew you wouldn't reply because you make some extremely bullsh1t comments with absolutely NOTHING to back it up..you're staying true to the shaolin do legacy....ALL BULLSH1T. you're talkin out the side of your neck. you must really hate your life cause you're one bitter betty

[bawang]

this guys like a fat Sicilian version tila tequila

[hskwarrior]

you're preeeeety boring bawang the elitist. she makes good porno

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbfyCC0JuUM

PS.....only the phony ass frauds like yourself have to hide behind an alias. you sad sack of ****.

[TaichiMantis]

Boys!

Boys!

BOYS!

Take it outside! :rolleyes:

[hskwarrior]

Dey Stahted et Furst!!!!!!!!!! LMAO

[TaichiMantis]

Dey Stahted et Furst!!!!!!!!!! LMAO


http://youtu.be/Cs4Gj7JsET4

[hskwarrior]

Infinity!!!!!

[bawang]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuoaGPlWr-4

[hskwarrior]

just for you.....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=my7sxZ0KfHU

[hskwarrior]

http://sfappeal.com/2014/04/raymond-shrimp-boy-chows-new-legal-team-includes-world-famous-civil-rights-lawyer-j-tony-serra/

[wenshu]

http://sfappeal.com/2014/04/raymond-shrimp-boy-chows-new-legal-team-includes-world-famous-civil-rights-lawyer-j-tony-serra/

He should've hired Jimmy The Gent.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5Mfs44MhYM

[hskwarrior]

we'll see how it goes. I'm hoping they do take the entrapment route. if you've read the affidavit, you'd see the feds went after him and not him looking to commit crimes. so we'll see what happens.
Now, friends don't stab you in the back nor do your sworn brothers and leave you to take the rap. therefore, ratting on those who set you up is justified. No one gets respect for not ratting on rats. you look like a sucka in the end.

[SoCo KungFu]

wait, ok......WHAT AM I DOING TO EMULATE SHRIMP BOY? Did i shave my head and grow a mustache? Did i go out and buy a mercedes? I mean what do i do to emulate the man? This should be good since i know you don't know WTF you're talking about. Your unfounded sense of supremacy is hilarious as i know you are a Shaolin Do reject and probably one of soards victims.

this should provide me with a great belly laugh......

***** SOCO = Shaolin Do= one weak ass b1tch. i knew you wouldn't reply because you make some extremely bullsh1t comments with absolutely NOTHING to back it up..you're staying true to the shaolin do legacy....ALL BULLSH1T. you're talkin out the side of your neck. you must really hate your life cause you're one bitter betty

pluck pluck pluck. Sorry *******, I don't jump at your request, fat ass. I got more to do than sit in front of a computer all day, but you wouldn't know about productive living, now would you?

Really though, I'm actually astonished with how often you seem to be on here, what with how much time of the day you spend sucking crayfish boy's dick and all.

So how many underage Chinese boys did he let you take off with half price? Your whole ****ing line is disgusting.

[hskwarrior]

You shaolin do scumbag. hahahahahahaha
who gives a fuk what you think? You're pure garbage.

you're weak attempt to insult the man is laughable at best. even as we speak the man keeps getting more and more famous with tons of supporters.
you sound pretty fukkin jealous if you ask me. your rants are ill informed and fakkin childish. YOU spend more time here than anyone you fricken loser.

tell me, did you let soard suck your need dik? or was it 68 and he'll owe you one? i bet you had dreams of letting Sin The violate you in all manners of strange ways.

dude, the only place in the martial art world you seem to be relevant is here on this forum. you're such a NON FACTOR it tickles my funny bone when you act like you're not.

8205

you make some extremely bullsh1t comments with absolutely NOTHING to back it up..you're staying true to the shaolin do legacy....ALL BULLSH1T. you're talkin out the side of your neck. you must really hate your life cause you're one bitter betty

[Syn7]

Now, friends don't stab you in the back



I always liked the saying "Real friends stab you in the front."

It always seemed so apropos. When you receive criticism from somebody who's already got your guard up, you just ain't hearin' it.

[hskwarrior]

Criticism from people who are relevant is always welcome.
Criticism from a peanut gallery only makes for good laughs.

If my homies stabbed me period...front...back....or side to side......i'm shankin erraybody.
IMO, only the DUMBFUKS take a rap for rats.

http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Lawyer-says-Shrimp-Boy-a-victim-of-entrapment-and-5385990.php

[hskwarrior]

http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2014/04/the-case-of-raymond-shrimp-boy-chow.html?showComment=1396988673914

[Syn7]

Look, I'm no fanboy of the feds, but regardless of the technical legality of the scenario, shrimp boy engaged in a wrongful act. Knowingly laundered money he believed was illicit. Whether he wins at trial or not, it's quite clear that all his turning a new leaf bull**** was a lie.


It's kinda like when you were a kid and won a bet and the other dude was like "we didn't shake man". Whether the debt is paid or not, dude still lost. Know what I mean? Personally, I find the whole redemption angle to be attractive. A reformed boss is interesting ****, to say the least. Clearly he was still willing to commit crimes. Entrapment and technicalities aside.

[hskwarrior]

Look, I'm no fanboy of the feds, but regardless of the technical legality of the scenario, shrimp boy engaged in a wrongful act. Knowingly laundered money he believed was illicit. Whether he wins at trial or not, it's quite clear that all his turning a new leaf bull**** was a lie.


So you read the affidavit? What crime did he actually partake in? According to the Affidavit he never laundered any money himself. He doesn't own any businesses. It doesn't show him doing anything at all other than accepting an envelope full of money and an introduction. And, you're entitled to believe his turn around is bull**** but then again, really, what do you know? I can honestly and purely state you don't know a **** thing about the man's life aside from what the media leads you to believe. so your view is biased without anything real to back it up. Me however, I know more than you in this regard. And i know you too don't know what you're talking about.


It's kinda like when you were a kid and won a bet and the other dude was like "we didn't shake man". Whether the debt is paid or not, dude still lost. Know what I mean? Personally, I find the whole redemption angle to be attractive. A reformed boss is interesting ****, to say the least. Clearly he was still willing to commit crimes. Entrapment and technicalities aside.

that's ridiculous. It's obvious you never read the affidavit and are only going off of what media is telling you. While you sit there in doubt, I have people on hold waiting to jump on his movie even more now than before. His fan page on Facebook is steadily climbing in numbers of fans showing support.

what any of you feel about the man is irrelevant. This trial is going to prove to be very interesting. After reading the affidavit myself, i felt it was all entrapment. Next thing you know Lawyers are feeling the same way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOTHKAybG0M

[Syn7]

So you read the affidavit? What crime did he actually partake in? According to the Affidavit he never laundered any money himself. He doesn't own any businesses. It doesn't show him doing anything at all other than accepting an envelope full of money and an introduction. And, you're entitled to believe his turn around is bull**** but then again, really, what do you know? I can honestly and purely state you don't know a **** thing about the man's life aside from what the media leads you to believe. so your view is biased without anything real to back it up. Me however, I know more than you in this regard. And i know you too don't know what you're talking about.



that's ridiculous. It's obvious you never read the affidavit and are only going off of what media is telling you. While you sit there in doubt, I have people on hold waiting to jump on his movie even more now than before. His fan page on Facebook is steadily climbing in numbers of fans showing support.

what any of you feel about the man is irrelevant. This trial is going to prove to be very interesting. After reading the affidavit myself, i felt it was all entrapment. Next thing you know Lawyers are feeling the same way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOTHKAybG0M

I read the articles you posted. No more, no less. I don't watch cable news or read semi tabloid newspapers that masquerade as print media, so aside from here, I only heard about it in relation to the bigger story, which is not shrimp boy. Quite frankly, he's kind of a footnote in all this. Interesting story though.

Anyways, If you have any more relevant info you feel people should see, then throw it up. I know what you think, I know what his lawyers have been saying, so no need to reiterate that a million times. Show me something new. I'll read it, within reason of course.

[hskwarrior]

I'm sure if you actually cared you can research it and even find the affidavit and THAT doesn't indicate raymond as having an actual hand in anything. I know they want him badly because he was being successful in his quest to turn over a new leaf. I will never try to get this forum convinced of anything. Mine and my lineages connection to the tong raymond chow is president of goes back to the 1840's. All of the elders in our lineage were members of the hung mun. regardless if the Dragon head......or MOUNTAIN LORD was someone else, I'd still support the tong. i am actually closer to raymond more than you may think so i can speak on the man and what he's been doing.

(if i feel like saying it three million times......i will.)

[hskwarrior]

http://blogs.kqed.org/pop/2014/04/02/the-daily-show-roasts-leland-yee-and-shrimp-boy/

[David Jamieson]

Man, I can't believe how well moderated this forum is. :rolleyes:

All this personal info, direct naming of people who aren't even here and so on and so forth.

Stellar.

Here's one more: :rolleyes:

[hskwarrior]

Yup.......mmmmm hmmmmm.:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDA-_oeMzZ4

[GeneChing]

It's not like we were best buds or anything. I doubt he even remembers my name. But we worked together for Shaolin Temple Day (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?53389-Songshan-Shaolin-Temple-Day) many times and he always seemed to recognize me. I've been to his office in Sacto, and been at many banquets with him. Such a shame. :(


Man, I can't believe how well moderated this forum is. :rolleyes: When the axemen show up on our doorstep, I'll delete this thread.

[hskwarrior]

The leland thing is embarrassing for us too as he was once a Hung Sing student under my sigung

[GeneChing]

I never knew. He was pretty quiet about that. I asked him if he practiced ever but he demurred. He was a master at the political side-step, as any high-level politician would have to be.

It's such a shame as Yee was one of the most prominent Asian Americans in U.S. politics. For him to go down this way - Chinatown-based corruption - just feeds the stereotype. It sets us back in so many ways.

[hskwarrior]

yeah its bad all the way around. The chinese are being targeted right now, which is why there is a press conference at raymond chow's lawyers office tomorrow afternoon.

[David Jamieson]

It's not like we were best buds or anything. I doubt he even remembers my name. But we worked together for Shaolin Temple Day (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?53389-Songshan-Shaolin-Temple-Day) many times and he always seemed to recognize me. I've been to his office in Sacto, and been at many banquets with him. Such a shame. :(

When the axemen show up on our doorstep, I'll delete this thread.

no worries, i was just poking the rock MK is under for some fun. :D

[hskwarrior]

http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Ca-Sen-Leland-Yee-and-co-defendant-plead-not-5385990.php

[David Jamieson]

well, it is his lawyer. lol

[hskwarrior]

i felt the same thing after reading the affidavit.

[hskwarrior]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAUPI2-hxxE

http://media.fresnobee.com/smedia/2014/04/09/22/56/872-15HfkB.AuSt.4.jpeg

[Vash]

It's not like we were best buds or anything. I doubt he even remembers my name. But we worked together for Shaolin Temple Day (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?53389-Songshan-Shaolin-Temple-Day) many times and he always seemed to recognize me. I've been to his office in Sacto, and been at many banquets with him. Such a shame. :(

When the axemen show up on our doorstep, I'll delete this thread.

Maybe I need to clear my cache more often; I see my post, then Kung Lek's post, then the rest. Am I missing something?

[Vash]

SoCo/HSK;

I've sent a PM to both of you, and deleted the last two posts. If personal attacks need to continue, please keep them to email.

If we can stay on topic, or if the Lord Ching says, I'll keep the thread open. Otherwise, I'll consider the conversation to have run it's course and lock.

[GeneChing]

As in Mountain Lord? Come on now, don't pull me into this (although if you take the second syllable of my birth certificate name and my surname, you do get "Wah Ching"...srsly).

I think this is a very interesting topic as a barometer of Chinese American perspectives and I'd really like to keep it going, so let's make an effort to stay civil. Clearly, hsk is connected to the Tongs and can provide as much of an insider's perspective as it permitted, and it would be a shame to silence this out of petty flame wars.

That being said, there was a fairly balanced front page article on Shrimp Boy in the SF Chron on Sunday. Most of you only hear the negative story, but for those of us local to SF, there's another side.


The enigma of Raymond Chow, self-proclaimed ex-gangster (http://www.sfgate.com/default/article/The-enigma-of-Raymond-Chow-self-proclaimed-5398313.php)
John Coté
Updated 10:32 pm, Saturday, April 12, 2014

http://ww2.hdnux.com/photos/27/32/27/6137309/11/628x471.jpg
In this image provided by Jen Siska, Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow, is seen posing for a portrait in San Francisco in July 2007. Investigators say Chow is the leader of one of the most powerful Asian gangs in North America. Chow's gang is said to have lured state Sen. Leland Yee into its clutches through money and campaign contributions in exchange for legislative help, as Yee sought to build his campaign coffers to run for California secretary of state. Yee and Chow were both arraigned on federal gun and corruption charges on Wednesday, March 26, 2014. (AP Photo/Jen Siska) MAGS OUT NO SALES NO ARCHIVE Photo: Jen Siska, Associated Press

Even as he sat in federal custody accused of overseeing a $2.3 million money-laundering operation, reputed Chinatown gangster Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow managed to have a photo of himself flashing a goofy grin and riding a children's mechanical horse posted to his Facebook page.

"Don't believe everything you read or hear," said the accompanying message, posted March 28. "Make your decision after you meet me and get to know me. I got to laugh today and I hope this photo does the same for you."

That lighthearted image stands in sharp contrast to Chow's dispassionate recounting of the intimidating tactics he used to consolidate San Francisco's Chinese criminal underground starting in the 1980s, or of his time in San Quentin after a 1978 armed robbery conviction, where he counted murderous cult leader Charles Manson as a "good friend of mine."

There are two deeply conflicting versions of Chow, the 5-foot, 5-inch package of calm intensity with a thin mustache above a hearty smile who in recent years frequented art galleries, drank at the swanky Hakkasan restaurant and sported eye-catching shirts, crisp jackets and a pocket square.

One is the gangster who once declared, "I run this city." The other is the reformed convict who spent hours warning teenagers against taking up the gang life, talked convincingly about "peace and love," and won the praise of top politicians such as Mayor Ed Lee, who provided Chow with a certificate of honor for his "tenacity and willingness to give back to the community."
Nuanced reality?

Whether the two can be reconciled should eventually play out in a San Francisco federal courtroom. There may also be a more nuanced reality: that Chow, at 54 years old, was striving to better himself and genuinely cared about youth, but couldn't fully leave the world of crime he had known since he was 9 years old - or ignore the practical need for money.

The man known to some in Chinatown as Dai Lo, which translates as "big brother" in Cantonese but can also connote "mob boss," says he has been in an immigration limbo for the last 10 years that precludes him from working legally. But Chow said in a Dec. 12, 2012, Facebook post that he relies on friends and family to survive and has not returned to his old ways. Chow, who is still in custody after his March 26 arrest, is commenting only through his attorneys.

The FBI contends Chow merely cultivated an image of legitimacy, removing himself from hands-on crime while still getting a cut of the proceeds brought in by the criminal network he oversaw and operated out of Ghee Kung Tong, also known as the Chinese freemasons. Chow was the leader, or "dragon head," of that tong, one of the oldest fraternal organizations in San Francisco's Chinatown.

A 137-page FBI affidavit filed in U.S. District Court last month alleges that a faction of tong members overseen by Chow laundered what they thought were drug and illegal gambling proceeds; sold cognac, scotch and cigarettes they thought were stolen; dealt guns; conspired to sell drugs; and provided introductions that led to bribery and an international arms scheme involving now-suspended state Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco.

After being introduced to an undercover FBI agent posing as a member of the Mafia from New Jersey, Chow allegedly whispered to the agent during a meeting in a karaoke bar that he was no longer involved in crime, but that he "knew of and approved all criminal activities within his organization," according to the affidavit by FBI Special Agent Emmanuel Pascua.

Chow has been charged with seven counts of money laundering, two counts of conspiracy to transport and receive stolen liquor, and one count of conspiracy to traffic untaxed cigarettes - with the contraband provided by the FBI. He faces up to 20 years in prison for each money-laundering count, the ones that carry the harshest penalties. Twenty-eight other people, including Yee, face charges in the wide-ranging case.

Chow's attorneys have blasted the allegations against him as "government-created criminality" manufactured by the FBI, which spent five years on an undercover investigation, providing money to be laundered and pushing for more serious crimes. His legal team says those efforts turned up no real evidence against their main target, Chow.

In prosecution documents alone, there are 25 instances where Chow says he wants nothing to do with crime and four times that he discourages the undercover agent from illegal activity, including dealing heroin, his attorneys said at a news conference last week. Chow also demurred when credited with introductions that led to alleged money laundering or drug deals with others, his attorneys said.

"That's terrible dude, I don't want to know, that's illegal stuff," Chow told the agent posing as a mafioso on Feb. 14, 2013, when asked what he thought the agent and George Nieh, a member of the Ghee Kung Tong and a Chow associate who now faces criminal charges, were up to.

"That's what an innocent man says to an undercover agent," said Curtis Briggs, an attorney who met Chow a few years ago doing community work and volunteered to defend him in court.

At that same meeting, the affidavit said, after the undercover agent gave Chow an envelope containing $2,000 and thanked him for the "opportunity to work with his people," Chow laughed and said, "No, no, I didn't give you the opportunity; you make your own opportunity. ****, that is bribery money dude, that's not good."

But he took the cash.

According to the affidavit, it was part of at least $58,000 the agent paid Chow over almost three years, ending in December, as his cut from money laundering, purportedly stolen liquor sales and contraband cigarettes.
Testified against boss

Chow maintains that he has been clean since he was released early from federal prison in 2003 after he agreed to testify against his former boss, Peter Chong, a reputed leader of the Wo Hop To triad, an organized crime syndicate based in Hong Kong. Chong had worked with Chow to consolidate Asian gangs in San Francisco and beyond. Chong was released from prison in 2008.

Chow, a Chinese citizen, was allowed to remain in the United States wearing an ankle monitor as he applied for a special visa reserved for witnesses in criminal cases. That application is still pending, according to the FBI.

He also can't legally work in the United States because of his immigration status, according to his attorneys, who say federal authorities reneged on a promise to put Chow in a witness protection program and left him to return to the only life he's known - the criminal underworld.

Chow has previously said he joined an organized crime group at age 9 in his native Hong Kong, where he was born Kwok Cheung Chow. His grandmother gave him the nickname Shrimp Boy out of the belief that evil spirits could not find little children if they didn't know their name. He was the smallest of five brothers, so the name stuck, he said in a 2007 interview.

When his family moved to the United States in 1976 when he was 16, Chow found familiarity in the Hop Sing Boys, a street gang that was the enforcement arm of the Hop Sing Tong, one of the numerous tongs, or fraternal groups, with their roots in the Hung Mun, a secret society that began in mid-17th century China to overthrow the Manchu-ruled Qing Dynasty.

The offshoot groups that sprang up during waves of immigration to the United States and elsewhere sometimes served as mini-governments and a bulwark against rampant discrimination. The tongs settled disputes, provided aid to immigrants and approved business locations. Some also engaged in extortion, prostitution and the opium trade.

Violent tong

By the 1970s, most San Francisco tongs had become social clubs for aging immigrants. But Hop Sing was torn by violence as younger members struggled for power with older leaders.
continued next post

[GeneChing]

Note that there is a vid too, if you follow the link above.

In 1977, a year after Chow arrived in San Francisco, he was one of a group of young gangsters inside Chinatown's Golden Dragon restaurant, in a Hop Sing-owned building, when rival gang members burst in and opened fire. Five patrons were killed and 11 people wounded - none of them gang members.

Chow quickly distinguished himself within the Hop Sing Boys with his blend of charisma and ruthlessness, and would later boast of controlling all of the region's Asian gangs.

"If you are asking me which gang did I join, I did not join any gang," Chow told a federal prosecutor in 2002. "I owned the gang. ... All those people who were walking the streets of the Bay Area, all of them were controlled by me."

Chow was convicted in 1978 for a Chinatown robbery and served a little over seven years of an 11-year prison sentence.

He was released in 1985, but found himself back behind bars a year later, charged with assault with a deadly weapon and other crimes. Chow served three years and was released in 1989, but was arrested again in 1992, when he was charged, along with Chong, with leading a widespread criminal network attempting to unify Chinese gangs on both U.S. coasts under the Wo Hop To triad.

Chow pleaded guilty in federal court to racketeering involving murder for hire, conspiracy to distribute heroin, arson and other crimes. He got his sentence cut in half after he agreed to testify against Chong and was released in 2003.

He emerged from prison a changed man, said Eli Crawford III, a former inmate who said he served as the orderly in the secure unit, or solitary confinement prison block, where Chow had been housed.

"Raymond made a promise not only to me, but he made the promise to God," said Crawford, who said that since their release from the prison, both men had worked together to tamp down violence in San Francisco's Bayview and Western Addition neighborhoods. He said they also conducted a three-day workshop at San Francisco City College in 2012 on education and re-entry into society after incarceration.

But less than two years after Chow's release from prison in 2003, his name was connected to an alleged attempt to extort $100,000 from the Hop Sing Tong.

Allen Leung, an elder at that point in both the Hop Sing Tong and the Ghee Kung Tong - also known as Chee Kung Tong, or CKT - went to the FBI in 2005 with concerns and later said he feared for his life.

Leung told the FBI the problems had begun in late 2004, when two young members of Hop Sing sought about $100,000 from the organization. Leung told FBI Special Agent William Wu that Chow had also shown up at Hop Sing's headquarters in late 2004 making the same demand.

In February 2005, a restaurant and four Chinatown buildings that housed tongs - but not Hop Sing - were vandalized with red paint. About two weeks later, Leung and other Hop Sing leaders met and voted to turn down the request for $100,000, Leung told authorities.

The next day, several shots were fired into the door of the Hop Sing Tong, police said. Later in March, Hop Sing leaders received a taunting letter that read: "Someone opened fire to front door but you're just chickens -. No response to it. Just keeping your mouth quiet. Having this kind of leader makes all the tongs lose face. I have a poem to dedicate to you. 'You should be embarrassed for a thousand years and your reputation stink for 10,000 years.' "

When asked by the FBI, Chow denied the extortion threat and said that Hop Sing board members had approached him and "wanted him to loan-shark the money," according to court documents.

Unsolved slaying

Less than a year later, on Feb. 26, 2006, Leung was shot dead in his import-export business on Jackson Street as his wife looked on. His killing has not been solved. Chow, who wore a white suit to Leung's funeral, has denied any involvement in his killing, suggesting that others could have tried to extort money using his name.

Six months after the killing, Chow took Leung's place as leader of Ghee Kung Tong, and the FBI and San Francisco police both conducted surveillance at his swearing in.

But acquaintances said Chow resisted the pull of the underworld - instead talking to troubled youth through violence-prevention groups like United Playaz, and working on an autobiography with the help of a ghostwriter and his girlfriend of the past six years.

He has plans to turn his story into a movie and told the undercover FBI agent he had $50,000 set aside to get his book published, and had a potential book and movie deal worth $3 million that he was reluctant to sign because he wanted to control the production.

"From what I could see, I thought he was very sincere," said Bill Lee, a former San Francisco planning commissioner and former city administrator who has attended some Ghee Kung Tong banquets. "I told him, 'I don't mind helping you.' "

Until recently, Chow lived on Potrero Hill at the home of his girlfriend, Alicia Lo, who, according to her Facebook page, models and works in sales and marketing for a custom cabinetry and handmade furniture company. Lo declined to comment when reached at her home or after the press conference last week at the law offices of Chow's attorneys, where she sat in the audience wearing sunglasses.

Lo cried at one point when one of the speakers, Rudy Corpuz Jr., a felon turned community activist who invited Chow on numerous occasions to talk to teenagers about making smart choices in life, said, "I got love for the brother. And I say that from my heart."

Positive influence

By all accounts, Lo helped Chow turn his life around, shepherding him on the book deal, taking care of him, even buying him clothes.

"She has been an extremely positive, consistent force in Raymond's life," Briggs said. "She believes in him 200 percent. She helped him. She had resources."

Despite Chow's dapper dress, in October 2011 he told an undercover FBI agent that he was broke.

The agent responded that Chow had a lot of nice clothes and jewelry, and "Chow explained that he did not understand why people gave him things all the time."

Many of the clothes, though, Lo bought for him secondhand at shops like Goodwill, said Briggs, who described Chow as "this almost monastic figure who is trying to put the pieces together."

"He had a lot of friends who saw him doing community work," Briggs said. "There is nobody who met Ray who didn't want to help him."

Perhaps one of the most telling exchanges - and one that may reveal much about Chow - was recorded by the FBI on May 6, 2012, when he was talking to Nieh in Nieh's car, neither man realizing the FBI was bugging the conversation.

During that seemingly unguarded moment, Chow voiced concerns about having Ghee Kung Tong members working with a person they thought was a member of the Mafia, and said he didn't want the organization involved.

"Chow said he was afraid of the (tong) being tagged as an 'underworld society' and 'participating in organized crime,' " according to the FBI affidavit. "Chow said that was all he was worried about, but, of course, he wanted to make money."

In almost the next breath, he had his defense planned out.

"Chow said if he got ratted out, he would claim that he had only introduced the relationship," according to the affidavit, "and that he didn't know what they were doing."

The press always makes a big deal of Shrimp Boy wearing a white suit at Allan Leung's funeral as if it was a sign of disrespect, but actually, white is the funeral color for most Asian cultures.

[hskwarrior]

Raymond Chow was next in line to take the Dragon Head aka Mountain Lord position. Mountain Lord, White Paper Fans, Incense Masters, Blue Lanterns, and Red Sticks titles are no different than titles you will find in European Masonic lodges who also have silly names like "Prince of Mercy" "Worshipful Master" "Grand Wardens" "Grand Bible Bearer" "Lieutenant Grand Commander" "Right Illustrious" and so on. So, sure the outsiders (non chinese) are going to make fun of the "Mountain Lord" name because they themselves have no culture.

Anyways. The first time I'd ever heard of or seen Raymond was at Allen Leung's funeral. That day his mercedez pulled up to the curb and out jumped Raymiond wearing all white. At first even i too thought that was a bold move. Yet, at the same time i know white is what traditional chinese wear to a funeral. And, if anyone knew raymond, "TRADITIONAL" is somethnig he strongly believes in. I knew allen Leung and knew of suspicions of who actually killed him were floating around. Regardless, no one knew who did it. The latest thought on who may have killed him were communists from china. Till this day, i feel horrible for Allen's family, gung fu lineage (Leung's White Crane), and friends. But I was honored to be there to send him home (Funeral and Burial). I'd never been to a traditional chinese funeral much less witness the inner workings of the Chinese Secret Societies in this regard. Allen was a well liked person by those who knew him. Still, his dragon head position was and still is under raymond....... very powerful. It is a position highly respected by leaders of Asian countries. I can vouch for that as well.

My sifu as well as my sigung and Lau Bun had already been a members of the Ghee Kung Tong for most of their lives and served under a number of Dragon heads. Now, i kept my mouth shut about what went down recently and didn't even want to talk about it because I was ****ed off that Raymond allowed himself to get caught up in this recent mess. From the moment he hand picked me to be an officer of his lodge I told him myself that if he was still involved with crime i didn't want anything to do with him nor the tong. But after working very closely with him (EVERY **** DAY OF THE WEEK) i believed he was seriously trying to turn over a new leaf. To me, being a Dragon Head was far more important and respectable than ever being the leader of some gang. So i stressed that to him constantly. I helped him with his book project, his movie project, his community projects, his charity work (for which many people don't touch because its too "GOOD" of a thing and boring in comparison to criminal activities). While the media will never let raymond live down his past deeds, they never focus on the good that he was doing in the community.

Whenever there was a disaster in China, Taiwan, or anywhere he always have us do charity drives to make donations to various disaster relief funds. Raymond was the first Dragon Head to ever go outside of the Chinese community to help save the youth of the samoan, black, asian, and latino communities. He honestly cares about the kids and always tells them to stay in school and get that education. one of the things he always tells them is to do is register to vote as soon as they are able to. So i know where his heart is and the direction he wanted to go. His passion to right his wrongs are very strong regardless of his current situation. And he was finally enjoying a life of people showing him love and respect. The community saw what he was doing and they began to show him love as well.

now, for anyone interested in knowing what life is like for raymond outside of the tong. Aside from my tong duties, I was sort of Raymond's personal assistant. While the media and cops were saying Raymond was evil and should never have been let out of jail, I got to see what the government was doing to him in regards to his personal life. They didn't allow him to work in order to make a living for himself. Also, they chained him down to the SF bay area, so he could never do anything without them knowing. he forever wears the ankle tracker so they track his every movement. In spite of constant requests to have it removed or even to get him a certain type of visa they repeatedly denied him. If he wanted to leave SF for L.A. he had to request permission first. I know because i was the one sending the emails. They would mess with him and deny certain requests just to deny them. As well, the cops would go to raymond's rivals to get them to go after him, or give them his cell phone to have them call and harass or even threaten him. Raymond just wanted to get back to a normal life, but the authorities wouldn't let that happen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOTHKAybG0M

Every positive move Raymond has tried to make, he is met with his past via the media who only play it up to get ratings. Raymond was beginning prove the police and all of his nay sayers wrong, which is why i remained with him as an active member of his tong. They hated seeing him succeed in his mission to live a new life. They even said it in the documentary, they could never find any evidence buy had always had suspicion. They continued with their suspicion but could never find anything on him. they (the cops) were getting ****ed about it too. he really was proving them wrong. So, what did they do? They knocked on HIS door, THEY went searching for HIM. He wasn't out there laundering anything. He wasn't out there selling drugs, shaking anyone down, he wasn't gun running, he wasn't ordering crimes to be done. He isn't the leader of any gang, either regardless of what the media tries to paint him out to be.

Regardless of how people feel about raymond, I got to know him very well in the time that i was working side by side to him. I know he doesn't have money because the police won't let him have a job. So how is the man supposed to eat? How is the man supposed to live? Fortunately for him, he had an awesome girlfriend who taught him how to dress and bought his clothes for him. He was driving the same old mercedes for so long that it eventually just died. that's why he doesn't have it now. it was nice tho. bullet proof and everything. the next car that he got was given to him by a tong brother but it was a bucket!!! then he'd drive his girls car to get him places. so if he had all kinds of illegal money, he would have used it to buy himself a nice ride. but NOPE.

Now, everyone from raymond's past were gangsters. so today, they still see him in chinatown. they take him to lunch or breakfast. he really does survive with the help of others. So the UCE's come knocking on his door saying they want to commit crimes he really did tell them he cannot and will not be involved with these crimes. This is stated in the affidavit. Still, they tempted a hungry man with what he was in need of. money. why? he was trying to publish his book and work on his movie. he was just trying to live like a normal human being. But for most of his life, the criminal world was all he knew up to 2006. Since he took over as the new Dragon Head and being a man on a mission to redeem his past, he got the chance to meet and make friends with people he would never have the chance to meet in the past. I personally know what the man felt about his succeeding in life without crime. I was constantly trying to get him to go back to school to get his diploma. He was falling in love with honest hard working success. he was doing positive things. THE POLICE HATED IT.

[hskwarrior]

They hated it so much that they came knocking on his door looking to commit crimes. They didn't catch raymond or any of the others in the midst of doing crimes. Regardless of Raymond introducing the UCE's to people then they - minus raymond - commited crimes on their own time. They didn't commit these crimes FOR raymond. he never ordered anything to take place. raymond wasn't going to have any part of what THEY were going to do. Never did the affidavit say he asked for a cut. They came to him giving him money was a way to trap him into their crimes. he knew he didn't have part to play in their crimes, but was money hungry so he took it. if they were giving it, he needed it, so there you go. but did he take it as his acknowledged cut for their crimes? NOPE. And as the lawyer stated, there's no crime against "Gratuity".

In the end, I personally feel that the feds and other targeted him because he wasn't doing any crimes. he was succeeding in helping the kids, turning his life around, and gaining the support of san francisco's communities. As well, i don't trust the entire affidavit as i know they are notorious for chalking up crimes to be more than they really are hoping something will stick. for example, i know some kids who were selling fireworks and their stupid asses put an ad in craigslist i think. anyways the feds got wind of it and contacted them to buy some. needless to say they got busted and the charges were huge. i'm talking about homeland security and terrorism type charges. i mean it looked bad for these kids. when it crossed the judges lap, the judge looked at the charges and looked at the evidence then looked at the cops and tell them "It's firecrackers", not EXPLOSIVES like real bombs and such. then he gave the kids misdemeanors for the offense and reprimanded the police for wasting everyone's time.

My personal connection to the Ghee Kung Tong is not because of Raymond Chow or wanting to be a criminal. My connection is one of tradition. One of our gung fu founders teachers is the founder of what is currently known today as Ghee Kung Tong back in China. So from Jeung Hung Sing, Yuen Hai, Lau Bun, Jew Leong, my sifu and myself we have maintained the connection since 1849 until the present (165 years). I didn't join to serve under Raymond. I was trying to join under Allen Leung first and via our gung fu lineage have also served under previous Dragon Heads till now. But Raymond always knew about me and that's why i was hand picked by him to be an officer to serve under him. So, for all the haters who believed i was a member of his tong because i was trying to be a criminal or whatever.....YOU'RE WRONG. My reasons are purely traditional. Today I'm honored to say I am the first blue eye'd person to hold office in an organization with the Ghee Kung Tong's history. I am not there for raymond and even if he gets life in prison, I am still going to be a member of GKT regardless of who the next Dragon Head may be.

[Syn7]

Mountain Lord is a dope title! I like how it sounds.

[hskwarrior]

I prefer Dragon Head. I like the way that sounds.

[hskwarrior]

tHIS IS HELLA FUNNY.....

http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/lsluy5/innocent-until---who-are-we-kidding-

[GeneChing]

Good ol' slick Willie


Let's everybody calm down about the Leland Yee ruckus (http://www.sfgate.com/default/article/Let-s-everybody-calm-down-about-the-Leland-Yee-5415443.php)
Willie Brown
Published 3:44 pm, Saturday, April 19, 2014

http://ww4.hdnux.com/photos/10/60/16/2294675/109/628x471.jpg
Former Mayor Willie Brown poses for a portrait at his apartment in the St. Regis Hotel on Thursday July 31, 2008 in San Francisco, Calif. Photo: Mike Kepka, The Chronicle

I'm starting to feel sorry for Leland Yee. He is holed up in his house and everyone thinks of him as the reincarnation of Al Capone.

Give the guy a break. When all is said and done, his alleged crimes come down to taking campaign contributions in return for issuing proclamations, using campaign funds to set up a meeting and taking campaign funds for writing a letter.

Never did he sell his vote, steal public money or actually put money in his own pocket, as far as I can tell.

None of Yee's decisions affected the public.

I've gone over the FBI's criminal complaint and, from what I can see, the biggest crime he was accused of was trying hustle some undercover FBI agents who were out to get alleged Chinatown gang leader Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow.

The 137-page indictment says nothing about Yee being involved with the drug and murder-for-hire charges leveled at some of the others.

And there was apparently never a gun-running operation involving him. It was allegedly just Yee thinking he could hustle some money, that he was ripping off someone who was not very smart. Instead it was an FBI agent.

When all is said and done, Yee appears to be a petty thief - the guy that walks past the fruit stand and, when you're not looking, takes an apple and keeps walking.

He should not be in government, but that doesn't mean he is dangerous.

And sending him to jail is a waste of time. He is already screwed for life.

[David Jamieson]

Good ol' slick Willie

In all fairness there are a great many people who are in government who perhaps should not be in government.
But they are there because they got voted in. So, who's at fault? That's right, we the people. :)

[bawang]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NQqTLndQj8

[hskwarrior]

8369
............................................

[hskwarrior]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvJ4xfDMmlw

[SoCo KungFu]

Selling shirts for the pedo now are we?

I have absolutely no respect for those that traffic people, and nearly as little for the fat ass limp **** pedophiles that worship them. You two should both be strung up by your feet and eviscerated with a blunt knife.

[wenshu]

What's he need a legal defense fund for? He's probably talking to the prosecutor right now

[hskwarrior]

SoCo KungFu:

I think you REALLY need to see this video. It will clear up a ton of things for you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaKcQUq_Plg&feature=youtu.be

However, i do find it hilarious that you seem to think Raymond Chow is a pedophile. You don't know sh1t about what you're talking about. Your ill-placed sense of moral superiority is nothing more than a mere front because you yourself were a victim of sexual abuse. You sure do have a strange fascination with pedophilia. I can tell you never tried to comprehend the charges set against or for even what Raymond Chow was actually convicted of in his past. But, since you are extremely jaded by your own personal issues from YOUR past, I am gonna post what raymond was arrested and did time for in his past. And you will clearly see that "UNDER AGE PROSTITUTION" or "HUMAN TRAFFICKING" was never part of his M.O.

"Criminal activities

When Chow was 17 and a member of a the Hop Sing Boys, he survived an attack by a rival gang at the Golden Dragon restaurant. Chow's first conviction was in 1978, for robbery in Chinatown, San Francisco. Chow received an 11-year sentence, of which he served 7 years and 4 months. He was released in 1985. In 1986, Chow was charged with 28 counts of assault with a deadly weapon, attempted murder, mayhem, and illegal possession of a firearm. He served three years in prison and was released in 1989. In 1992 Chow was arrested for racketeering, later separated into two separate trials. The first was for illegal gun sales and the second was for prostitution, drugs and money laundering. Convicted in 1995, Chow was sentenced to 24 years.[1] When Peter Chong was captured, Chow turned on his old boss and cooperated with authorities, testifying against him in exchange for a reduced sentence. He was released from prison in 2003. In 1996, Chow was tried again for racketeering, but the indictment was dismissed.

As a condition of his release, Raymond Chow surrendered his visa. He requested witness protection but his request was denied by the prosecuting attorney. Raymond Chow is required to wear a tracking device.[4][5] Raymond Chow is currently the leader, or "dragon head", of Hung Moon Ghee Kong Tong, a fraternal association in San Francisco sometimes referred to as the Chinese Freemasons.[6]


As it is clearly stated "PEDOPHILIA" of any sort was NEVER MENTIONED. Only a few of his HATERS say he was involved with a Child Prostitution while everything else just says "PROSTITUTION". I am sure if the former were the case then ALL information about raymond's past would state "CHILD PROSTITUTION" instead of "PROSTITUTION". So, i don't know where you're getting your information from, but you can stick your ill placed moral superiority up your ass for all i care.

[hskwarrior]

What's he need a legal defense fund for? He's probably talking to the prosecutor right now

IF you ever reported a crime, YOU are a snitch as well. if someone hurt your family and you reported it to the cops, you're a snitch. if someone stole your car and you reported it to the police, you are a snitch.
if your friend was about to commit suicide and you called someone to intervene, YOU ARE A SNITCH. If you ever told a friend that their partner in life was cheating on them, YOU'RE A SNITCH. if you called the police to get the drug dealers off your block, YOU ARE A SNITCH. if you witness any type of injustice and report what you saw, YOU ARE A SNITCH.

get over it. and as i've said before and i will say it again. If you took the rap for people who stabbed you in the back then YOU are the perfect patsy and i would commit all my crimes with you and only you. But i will put my own life on the line and tell you that i know YOU will snitch long before he does or ever did.

The man did 11-13 years of a 24 year sentence before people convinced him to turn on his former RAT back stabbing scum of a boss. While they were out celebrating he sat in a cell because they turned on him and left him holding the bag. No visits. No money on his books. No assistance. No love. just betrayal. **** WHAT ALL OF YOU THINK. I would turn on those who stabbed me in the back in NY minute. Those who turn their backs on a sworn brother deserve death. Raymond did MORE than half of his sentence before cooperating with the police. 11-13 years is not a walk in the park. Patsy.

[wenshu]

IF you ever reported a crime, YOU are a snitch as well. if someone hurt your family and you reported it to the cops, you're a snitch. if someone stole your car and you reported it to the police, you are a snitch.
if your friend was about to commit suicide and you called someone to intervene, YOU ARE A SNITCH. If you ever told a friend that their partner in life was cheating on them, YOU'RE A SNITCH. if you called the police to get the drug dealers off your block, YOU ARE A SNITCH. if you witness any type of injustice and report what you saw, YOU ARE A SNITCH.

False equivalence. I'm not doing dirt and then selling out my cohorts as soon as faced with the consequences of my actions.

Snitch Boy is probably 20 pages deep listing names on the US Attorney's legal pad at this very moment.

[hskwarrior]

I'm totally confident you are a snitch. nothing you can do will ever convince me other wise.

and YOU too don't know sh1t about sh1t but you're quick to talk about it. maybe its just to get yourself heard.
but you ain't saying nothing. you don't know how to read either. sucks to be you.

and if raymond is a snitch, he's in good company with you. you wear the stench of snitch like its perfume. patsy.

[wenshu]

Are you crying?

[hskwarrior]

YEAH....I AM. WHY? YOU GONNA GO TELL SOME ONE? SNITCH? PATSY!!!!

lmao

For anyone who just may be interested, Raymond Chow didn't get arrested then snitched on his boss. He got arrested, went to court, witnessed his sworn brothers trying to pin everything on him. This can be seen in his documentaries. He admits to the circumstances on what lead him to testify against peter chong and the rest of the scum that stabbed him in the back. when all was said and done, Peter Chong fled to HK and Raymond Chow was still in jail. Out of the 24 year sentence he served a total of 11-13 years in jail before the idea of turning witness crossed his mind. He told me directly when I asked him about it and he said he was convinced by his peers...NOT LAW ENFORCEMENT......if he wanted to get back at the ones who did him wrong he should testify against them. After much soul searching he finally gave in and turned witness. as a result he was let out of jail. So, to reiterate....did he get busted then snitch? NOT AT ALL. did he snitch to reduce his sentence? His snitching was in the form of retribution on those who broke the brotherhood's oath of never pinning something on your brothers for your benefit. It really doesn't matter what losers on this forum really believe since their knowledge of the situation is irrelevant. I didn't start this thread. i'm just responding to it.

Haters will be haters regardless of the truth. Nothing is more evident than the essence of this entire forum. you are nothing more than the peanut gallery tossing in your two cents. It doesn't change anything. help anything. nor destroy anything. If you want to dwell in your own ignorance, ill placed moral superiority, arrogance, or just plain bitterness, that's up to you. Me, I know Shrimp Boy personally and i'm helping the man because I have seen first hand what law enforcement and the media is trying to do to him. how they hate the fact that he was being successful in turning his life around. The man went from being a criminal to being a hero for many on many different levels. He went from gangster documentaries to being focused on shows like "Change Makers" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrPLeDhz4Z8 . And regardless of how much the piece of crap "SOCO Kung FU" wants to believe it to be true, if Raymond Chow was busted for child prostitution I'm sure he wouldn't be allowed near any children out of fear that he would turn them into prostitutes. so dwell in your own bitterness.

AGAIN, raymond chow wasn't busted in the midst of committing crimes when this recent situation took place. The FBI and law enforcement were ****ed off that raymond wasn't committing crimes. but its the FBI who come crashing through chinatown and putting up people on the wall and take pictures of them because they're known to be in Raymond's tong. they came to raymond looking to entice him into crimes. he himself didn't bite. he never laundered money. he never sold the cigarettes. he never sold the alcohol. He wasn't present when the bought weed. A simple record of his tracking information from his ankle tracker would verify he was nowhere near the crimes as they took place at the hands of others. Raymond is a reformed notorious gangster and leader of an ancient secret society. The man knows how to keep secrets. Which is why he let the under covers get so close to him. He's not committing crimes and he never ordered any crimes to be committed. he has nothing to hide. people are going to do whatever they want to do. Raymond doesn't want any part of that. In the end, there were no crimes being committed by raymond or those connected to him for him nor the tong until the FBI showed up. they initiated it all. unfortunately, greed is a mutha chukka for some people (not referring to raymond).

allegedly, raymond took the money given to him. what was he supposed to do? he didn't do any crimes, but people want to give him money and the government forbids him to work and make an honest living for himself. how does a man feed himself when not allowed a means of feeding himself? that's not fukked up? telling the man, "here, you can be out of jail, but you can't work so that means you won't be able to feed yourself, take public transportation, live anywhere on your own, he'd have to wear whatever was on his back cause he couldn't buy anything new or used, he'd have to rely on hand outs. what's he supposed to do when no one has anything to hand out? thankfully, he had great friends and family. still, he wasn't allowed to live or to turn his life around. it was as if they said "ENOUGH......you're going back to jail cause we want you there". And yes, the guy is my brother and the leader of the tong. If he was an active criminal, i wouldn't support him. believe it or not. but i still support him. and believe in him. so hate all you want, but its just that. hate.

[hskwarrior]

8371
..............................

[hskwarrior]

8372
........................

[hskwarrior]

https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-frc3/t1.0-9/406572_456071294453334_2121056761_n.jpg

[hskwarrior]

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash2/t1.0-9/318945_429239183803212_2037198437_n.jpg

[hskwarrior]

https://scontent-a-sjc.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn2/t1.0-9/282359_426968994030231_1009493363_n.jpg

[hskwarrior]

https://scontent-b-sjc.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/t31.0-8/p600x600/325820_393579970702467_280055877_o.jpg

[hskwarrior]

https://scontent-a-sjc.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash2/t31.0-8/458261_376454329081698_1972162010_o.jpg

[hskwarrior]

:D tttttttttt

[GeneChing]

...although I confess that for a fleeting moment, I considered voting for him, just because he *was* still on the ballot. :p


Indicted Yee gets a quarter-million votes for secretary of state (http://www.latimes.com/local/political/la-me-ln-indicted-politician-collects-a-quarter-million-votes-in-secretary-of-state-race-20140604-story.html)

http://www.trbimg.com/img-538f39fd/turbine/la-me-ln-indicted-politican-collects-a-quarter-001/750/16x9
State Sen. Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) leaves Federal Court in San Francisco in March after being charged with public corruption. Yee received more than a quarter-million votes for California secretary of state in Tuesday's primary. (Karl Mondon / Bay Area News Group)
Phil Willon

Despite dropping out of race for secretary of state, indicted politician still received votes.
Indicted politician finishes ahead of good-government activists in primary election, preliminary results show

Democratic state Sen. Leland Yee faces federal gun trafficking and political corruption charges, but still collected more than a quarter-million votes for California secretary of state in Tuesday’s primary election.

Yee, out on bail, had filed a written notice to drop out of the race for the state’s top elections officer right after his arrest in March, but it came after the deadline for removing his name from the ballot.

The veteran lawmaker and child psychologist finished a distant third out of the eight candidates running for the office, according to preliminary totals. Late-arriving and provisional ballots are still being counted across California, so there’s a slight chance Yee's finish in the contest could slip lower.

As the vote count stood Wednesday morning, Yee finished ahead of ethics watchdog Dan Schnur, a former chairman of the state Fair Political Practices Commission, who framed his campaign around cleaning up Sacramento. Yee also finished ahead of Derek Cressman, a Democrat and former director of the good-government group Common Cause.

State Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Pacoima) and Pete Peterson, a Republican and executive director of a public policy think tank at Pepperdine University, topped the field in the race for secretary of state and will face off in the November general election.

Larry Gerston, a political scientist from San Jose State University, said voters probably just recognized Yee’s name among the crowded field of candidates and didn’t connect him to the political scandal.

“Isn’t it amazing?” Gerston said. “Third place.”

Yee’s support was pretty consistent around the state. He collected 10% — more-or-less — of the ballots cast in many counties, according to unofficial results.

Among counties where Yee had his strongest showing were San Francisco, his hometown, and Sacramento, where he was serving in the Legislature. Yee’s arrest received extensive news coverage in both areas.

Federal prosecutors have accused Lee of offering to help an undercover FBI agent buy automatic weapons and to assist another undercover agent, who posed as a medical marijuana businessman, to meet influential legislators who could affect the regulation of marijuana.

[Syn7]

You can't take him off the ballot for crimes of which he is yet to be convicted. Yes, that may cause problems when crooks actually win, but the flipside is far worse. Just one of those things that you have to swallow for the greater good, IMO. Don't get me wrong, I don't know Cali state election laws, but I just personally feel it would be a bad idea to do that. Most people who get indicted are guilty, but many are not. You throw politics into that pot and... well... we all know how that can be. Dirt is currency.

[MarathonTmatt]

Dirt is currency.

Agree w/ everything u just said. and I understand "dirt is currency" is just a saying, but let me say this- actually water is currency. there is only two things in this world- the land (law of the land) and water (which is the law of banking.) the western world uses the concept of banking (law of the water) which comes from ancient Roman times and before even that, the Middle East (Babylon, etc, which is current day Iraq.)

A river BANK controls the flow of the current of the water. So we can see today, that banks control currency (money.) "Money flows through your hands like water" is a saying. People need a good cash flow or they will drown in debt. One has "liquid assets." And when you sell something, you put it up for SALE (ships have a "sail," it is the same word with the same root, really, just applied differently in our times.)

Further, all products that go around the world come in on a ship (well, most- this was the case a while ago anyway). Even on land, to deliver a package, it has to go through the shipping department of say, Fed Ex. If you put your house on the market you raise a sale (i.e. sail) sign. Also, ships are always feminine. That's why captains of ships will say "aye, she's a sturdy old ship" and things like that. So when the ship pulls up to the dock, she pulls up to berth. Now, the products that the ship delivers have been manufactured (a masculine word- man-u-facture). All products that come off the ship need to be inspected and certified with a certificate- is the fleet of cars blue, how much does it weigh, etc. Does this process sound familiar? This is just what happens when a woman "goes into labor" and gives birth in a delivery room at the hospital, and the Doc delivers the baby. Then there is a birth certificate issued- what color are the babies eyes, how much does it weigh, etc.

A birth certificate is actually a bond of servitude and the original copy (which you don't own- you are given a copy) is being bought and sold on the stock exchange all over the world. The elites see us as a resource. That is why there is a Human Resources Dept. at every job location one is to work at. There is oil, precious metals, rubber, and you- a resource.

Also the word for bank in Latin is "bench." This is why a judge rules from the bench, he is ruling from a bank. The gate that is up before the judge's stand is a water-gate, so if you pass through the gate, you are now in "hot water." Also, observe the Jolly Rancher-style flag in the courtroom (with a yellow-lining), this is a war time flag, not the true flag of the United States, which runs vertical, not horizontal, and with no lining. After the Civil War the United States Corporation came into being in 1871. That is why you NEVER tell them you are a U.S. citizen if they ask you that question- it does not mean what you think it does. If you are convicted then you will "pay your debt" to society and they will stick you in a cell. The court runs a racket. Well, games are played on courts- basketball, tennis. You play tennis with a racket. The job of the lawyer (the 2 teams) is to get the ball back in your court.

So don't rock the boat, mate.

[MarathonTmatt]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=exAuNXzn3fw


http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=cfnJ1rOFK7o

[GeneChing]

This was front page of the SF Chron yesterday.


Tony Serra a tireless courtroom 'Verbal Warrior'
Sam Whiting
Updated 10:27 pm, Saturday, July 19, 2014

http://ww4.hdnux.com/photos/31/15/31/6608491/3/628x471.jpg
Attorney J. Tony Serra Photo ran 05/20/1990

On Thursday morning, Tony Serra will put on his best $10 suit and loose secondhand shoes to begin what could be his last big courtroom battle - the defense of Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow, presumed leader of a Chinatown money laundering ring and a central figure in an indictment that has also targeted state Sen. Leland Yee.

The hearing, in federal court before U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer, will involve 29 defendants. Among their lawyers, Serra will be easy to spot - shaggy side hair, broken teeth, loud tie, but still at his fighting weight of 195 pounds and arguing for his client at every turn.

"I like to bring attention to myself," he says. "I'm that kind of person. I'm an extrovert."

Thursday's hearing is a status conference in which lawyers report on the state of their cases. The proceedings should help organize the case - now broad and unwieldy - so the trials of the various defendants can move through the courts. The case, which began in March when Yee was arrested on corruption charges, now involves narcotics transactions, murder for hire, sale of guns - and racketeering charges may also be brought. It is expected Serra will file a motion to have Chow freed from Santa Rita Jail in Dublin, where he's been since April.

The high-profile case seems the perfect setting for Serra's courtroom dramatics. From Huey Newton to Hooty Croy to the Hells Angels, he has built a cinematic reputation for winning jury trials on the strength of the withering and enfilading fire of his cross-examination of informants and government witnesses.

"He's smart and he captures a jury's attention," says former San Francisco District Attorney Terence Hallinan. "He has lots of movement and hand motions and expressions, and it is hard to ignore. He's kind of an actor in addition to being an attorney."

There is only one thing that Serra loves more than the fight to keep a client out of prison, and that is being sent to prison himself. He's been there twice for failure to pay income taxes, once for four months and once for 10 months, and prefers it for the company.

"If you ask me 'Tony, what's the best times of your life?' it's the two times I went to Lompoc," he says of the federal penitentiary in Southern California during an interview at his office on a bawdy strip of Broadway. "It was fantastic. If I'm lucky enough, I'll go back again. It's like locking a doctor who likes to practice medicine in a hospital."
Works for free

The legal work is the same in or out of prison, and so is the pay. There is none. Even Chow, a notorious high roller, gets a free ride.

"I'm a name brand, and I'm the best pro bono lawyer," he says. "I do free s-."

His legal practice survives on paid criminal defense work, often out-of-state marijuana cases, tried with the aid of local co-counsel.

He buys nothing new and not much used, either. His overhead is so low that he doesn't have a cell phone. For more than 50 years, Serra, 79, has lived alone on the western slope of Telegraph Hill, in a one-bedroom that is piled so high with junk that he hasn't even let his girlfriend see it. Located in an alley named after Beat poet Bob Kaufman, the apartment will probably end up being the last standing rent-controlled unit in San Francisco. Who is going to attempt an Ellis Act eviction on Tony Serra?

"One reason is I'm a lawyer," says Serra, who would welcome that fight. "Two, I have the law on my side."

The rent is $420 and he pays it in cash because he has no bank account. His net worth is whatever he has in his pocket, $200 or $300.

"I don't believe in private ownership of property, so I have nothing," he says. "I took a vow of poverty in the '60s, probably through an LSD experience."

San Francisco upbringing

He's always been comfortable among what he describes as "the upper lower class," which is how he characterizes his upbringing in the Outer Sunset District. His father, Anthony, was an immigrant from Mallorca who never made it past third grade and found work as a union man making jelly beans at a factory. His mother, Gladys, was from Los Angeles and never made it past fourth grade.

The Serra home was at 43rd and Taraval, six blocks from Ocean Beach. Living two doors away were the di Suveros. Among five boys in two hardscrabble families, one went to Harvard, one to Yale, one to Stanford, and two to Berkeley. Two, Tony Serra and Henry di Suvero, became defense attorneys, and three became artists. Richard Serra, one year younger than Tony, is probably the foremost creators of large-scale sculpture in America, if not the world. Mark di Suvero is close behind. The youngest Serra brother, Rudolph, is also a sculptor, based in Manhattan.

"There must have been some kind of electricity out there," Mark di Suvero said of the block.

Tony Serra's first recognized talents were in athletics. A three-sport man at Lincoln High School, he was all-city as a fullback-passer and was recruited by Stanford. In 1954, he left home, a straight-arrow driving a '41 Mercury down the Great Highway. At Woodside, he turned left toward Stanford, and has been going left ever since.

"I came to Stanford like a robust atom," he says. "I was going to be a chemical engineer and make a lot of money."

He joined Phi Gamma Delta (Fiji), a jock fraternity, and was playing both football and baseball when he drifted from the sciences into classes in poetry and philosophy.

"I had never been exposed to broader political issues, and I had an epiphany," he says. "I became an intellectual."

Its first manifestation came when he painted his room at the Fiji house black, dipped his bare hands in white paint and printed the walls. He had two strong men haul a rock in as a centerpiece, and Serra slept in a sleeping bag on the floor. Then he traded in the Mercury for an old Studebaker, put a mattress on the roof and took to sleeping there.

He became agitated with authority and quit the football and baseball teams, though he earned his varsity letter in boxing, as a light heavyweight, at the expense of a broken nose and broken teeth. He moved out of the fraternity to a cabin by Lake Lagunita.

"I withdrew from the jock image," he says. "I stood with the intellects in terms of disparaging the so-called jocks."
Call of the counterculture

After graduating, he sampled the lifestyle of an expatriate writer in Tangiers, Morocco, but was scared off by the heroin culture and ended up going to Boalt Hall, the UC Berkeley school of law. His notion was to become a "Mafia lawyer" and follow his brothers to New York - and his first law job as an Alameda County prosecutor only confirmed his disdain for the government. He quit just in time to be waylaid by the counterculture.

"When the Haight Ashbury broke, I started going there, and then I wanted to be a radical lawyer," says Serra, who had long hair even before the arrival of the Beatles and has stayed with that look. "I dropped my first acid in '64 and became an acid head dancer."

He was trying cases by day and following the Grateful Dead at night. Both of his brothers were back East, and nobody was paying enough attention to their mother, who went down to Ocean Beach one day in 1977 and never came back.

"She walked like Virginia Woolf straight into the waves and committed suicide," recalls Serra. "It was depression that we didn't recognize."

The brothers blamed each other for ignoring their mother, though Serra acknowledges that he could have done more, given that he was living in the same town she was. "I was too busy being a hippie," he says.

He didn't do much better visiting his widowed father, and when he died of cancer about a year later, Serra did not attend his funeral.

"The accumulation of the pain brought me into a state of non-acceptance or rejection," he says. "Maybe I just couldn't confront it."

continued next post

[GeneChing]

Family split

Either way, that was the end between Tony and Richard. Once close, the brothers have not spoken in 35 years, and Tony no longer speaks to brother, Rudy, either.

Serra's family values are loosely structured. He has had three long relationships, though he's never been married. He usually travels on his own and eats dinner on his own at cheap Italian and Chinese joints.

"I've always lived alone," he says, "but mind you, I have five kids."

Their names are Shelter, Ivory, Chime Day, Wonder Fortune and Lilac Bright, three boys and two girls. Their mother, Mary Edna Dineen, raised them in Bolinas.

"I was trying cases all over the country, so I was an absentee father," Serra says.

One chance to make amends came along with the feature film "True Believer," based on his defense of Chol Soo Lee in a Chinatown gang murder. Serra's deal with the screenwriter was for a fee of $100,000, which was to help put his kids through college. But the original screenplay got sold and re-set in New York. By the time "True Believer" was released in 1989, not a frame was believable, Serra says. Plus he never saw the $100,000, and his kids had to turn to their rich uncle, Richard, to put them through college. "What could I do? I had no money," says Serra, whose one indulgence is the medicinal marijuana that he smokes when he gets back to the office from court late in the afternoon. He doesn't drink so he figures it is an even trade.

"All of my role models, all the great lawyers were alcoholic," he says. "This is the way I alleviate stress, though I call it 'sacrament.' "

It doesn't appear to have eroded his memory. He can no longer instantly recall the names of all 20 characters in a case, but he can still catch a witness changing a detail in testimony from four days prior.
'Mind is still good'

"People look at me like and say, 'He's all hippie. He's full of drugs. He's probably a dance freak. He's dropped more acid than anyone else and his mind's gone,' " he says. "Not at all. My mind is still good."

The only band he follows is Furthur, the Dead descendant, for which he will dress in tie-die and dance free-form, on two artificial hips, often under benefit of magic mushrooms. But most nights he is in bed by 10 and up by 6, writing poetry in longhand. Grizzly Peak Press has published two of his collections.

He hosts poetry readings at Pier 5 Law Offices, an association of 18 independent sole practitioners, where Serra has his office. It moved from the Embarcadero to Broadway 12 years ago but never bothered to update the name. In decor, it is more like a free clinic or concert hall, and it was here, at one of his poetry parties, that he met Letty Litchfield, a 55-year-old personal-injury lawyer in the Central Valley.

"She made herself available," he says, "so there is still passion and romance in my life."

Litchfield says she actually met Serra 23 years ago at a lecture he gave and began following his career.

"On a professional level, we both abhor injustices, and I'm inspired by his pro bono work," says Litchfield, who does pro bono work of her own for Native American tribes. "On a personal level, I adore him. He's a sensitive man and just a joy."

It's a long-distance relationship. Because Serra won't let Litchfield see his place, he goes to her place in the Sierra foothills. It's a three-hour drive in his 1993 Ford pickup, longer when he stops to visit clients in jails along the way.

"He represents everything I see as being what a criminal lawyer should be," says Steve Teich, a San Francisco criminal defense lawyer who met Serra nearly 40 years ago, after tracking him to a flight of stairs behind a wooden sign that read "Honest Lawyer." Teich was a student at Hastings College of the Law and after 10 minutes with Serra found the reason he was in law school: "He will represent a person who is seen as a nuisance or a pariah. He always takes cases to trial, and in court he is fearless."

That "Honest Lawyer" sign still hangs at the entrance to his office, though Serra prefers to think of himself as a "Verbal Warrior." He turns 80 on Dec. 30, but there is no slowing down. If anything, he is speeding up, with a load of 20 cases, mostly for murder. One jury trial runs into the next.

"A lot of times you beat the death penalty, but you still get murder one or murder two," he says of his record. "There aren't a lot of acquittals of death penalty cases, and I have three."

Judge Fern Smith has been retired 10 years but she'll never forget Serra, who appeared before her in both superior and federal court.

"It was always entertaining," she says. "But more importantly, he believes passionately in his clients and in his view of the law. Even when he disagreed, he always respected my rulings."
'Shrimp Boy' case

Serra inherited Raymond Chow as a client when one of the lawyers at Pier 5 flipped him the case. Serra had never heard of Chow but saw the defense possibilities in his nickname.

"What kind of an appellation is that for a Chinatown tough guy?" he says. "Shrimp Boy. It's so soft and so gentle that it manifests his inner spirit."

He doesn't know how the Raymond Chow story will end, but he has an idea how the Tony Serra story will end.

"Probably I will die of a heart attack during a trial," he says, "and the jury will give me 'not guilty' just because I died." I've heard of Serra but never met him.

[hskwarrior]

This whole thing has me so upset. All of the people who were actually busted doing the crimes are out on bail. Raymond never did one crime and they still have him locked up in jail. claiming he is a flight risk. with a ankle tracker? a flight risk? this stuff is hella weak. I pray tony serra wins this fight for raymond.

[bawang]

hes just suffering the consequences of his actions so many years ago. sort of like an aids patient.

[hskwarrior]

could be. ......

[GeneChing]

This column is more in lines with hsk's point of view.


FBI: Gone fishin' - for Shrimp Boy and whatever (http://www.sfgate.com/default/article/FBI-Gone-fishin-for-Shrimp-Boy-and-whatever-5647746.php)
Debra J. Saunders
Updated 2:55 pm, Saturday, July 26, 2014

The FBI's motto is "Fidelity, bravery and integrity." But given the FBI sting against Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow - a convicted felon who was freed from prison in 2003 because the feds got him to testify against a confederate - I suspect that a more apt motto might be: FuggetaBoutIt.

On Thursday, Chronicle columnists Phil Matier and Andy Ross identified Mayor Ed Lee as another public figure who was drawn dangerously close to the FBI's "Shrimp Boy" trap. According to their report, FBI operatives donated $20,000 to Hizzoner's 2011 mayoral campaign. Likewise, agents reportedly tried to cozy up to two Ess Eff supervisors, London Breed and Malia Cohen, two Oakland City Council members, and - go figure - 49ers great Joe Montana.

"We have no information or reason to believe Mayor Lee was ever a target of this probe," quoth mayoral mouthpiece Tony Winnicker, "which, at any rate, appears to have been a fairly wide-ranging Bay Area fishing expedition." And so it does - think giant net, dubious catch.

At first it seemed like a huge crime story with a crooked politician and politically savvy crook. State Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, was caught in the FBI's dragnet, along with 25 others. Charges included firearms trafficking, murder for hire and honest-services fraud - and consorting with a Chinatown figure called Shrimp Boy.

Unfortunately for the authorities, most of the press already had seen "American Hustle," the star-studded drama about an FBI sting gone rogue.

If the complaint is accurate - and that's a big if - then Yee needed little prompting before he accepted illicit payments for public services. But his role as a dealmaker with a Filipino arms dealer was, by the feds' own account, all smoke and mirrors. The 137-page criminal complaint mostly cataloged instances of contraband cigarette trafficking, transport of stolen goods, drug dealing and money laundering, and not by criminal masterminds. Taxpayers can support a 4-year-long deployment of undercover agents, would-be informants and wiretap crews to collar arms dealers - but for cigarettes and bootleg Hennessy? I don't think so.

If I were making a movie of the feds' move against Chow, Yee and company, I'd start with the original sin. In 2000, Chow pleaded guilty to federal racketeering charges involving murder for hire, conspiracy to distribute heroin, and arson. For reasons I will never understand, the feds agreed to free Chow in exchange for his testimony against Peter Chong, a fellow leader of the Hop Sing Tong. Chong had fled to Hong Kong before he could be arrested.

Former Assistant U.S. Attorney William Schaefer told The Chronicle that Chow's testimony cemented Chong as the leader of the Hop Sing Tong. So where was the public safety benefit in freeing Chow, who was serving a 160-month sentence, in order to put a fugitive in a U.S. prison?

Is there no end to the lengths to which federal law enforcement will go to put another notch in its gun? According to the U.S. attorney's complaint, the San Francisco Police Department and the FBI surveilled the Ghee Kung Tong's swearing-in of Chow as its dragonhead in 2006 precisely because authorities believed he had become the head of a criminal enterprise.

If so, why didn't they deport Chow, a Chinese citizen who had applied for an S-visa - also known as a snitch visa? Or send him back behind bars? Curtis Briggs, one of Chow's attorneys, told me that he believes the FBI resented the prosecutor's decision to cut the deal that freed Chow. He portrays the Chow sting as "almost a retribution."

I don't buy that. I've talked to a number of men who have worked in law enforcement circles in the Bay Area. Their answer to my question is, in some ways, worse. We don't get convictions relying on the testimony of choirboys, they tell me (like I'm some Girl Scout). This case, they say, demonstrates a brilliant use of surveillance to prosecute a greedy politician, to nail a convicted felon always under their watchful eye, and to scoop up an extra couple of dozen shady characters who deserve to go to prison.

Briggs is right about this: The feds told a judge that Chow was reformed and thus he should be free. Then they allowed him to serve as a dragonhead in an ankle bracelet when they should have deported him. Maybe they tried to deport him, but they couldn't make up for their original mistake. And no one is talking.

I don't see brilliant law enforcement. I see institutional blindness. I see authorities thinking it's a smart idea to do the easy thing that makes the bureaucracy look good. Except it doesn't.

Is truth stranger than fiction?
'American Hustle'
New York FBI agent offers immunity to two con artists if they help him gather evidence against other criminal enterprises. The sting uses a phony Arab prince to snare a lovable mayor and less cuddly Beltway politicians.

San Francisco hustle
An undercover agent posing as New Jersey mobster spearheads a four-year sting that leads to indictment of 26 Bay Area residents, including a onetime federal informant turned tong leader in an ankle bracelet and a state senator who claims to have an in with a Filipino arms dealer.

Debra J. Saunders is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. E-mail: dsaunders@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @DebraJSaunders

[GeneChing]

This came over the AP but I stumbled across it on SF Gate when looking up the article above.


California state senator facing additional charge (http://www.sfgate.com/default/article/California-state-senator-facing-additional-charge-5647589.php)
Updated 8:27 pm, Friday, July 25, 2014

http://ww2.hdnux.com/photos/31/26/35/6645613/3/628x471.jpg
FILE - In this March 26, 2014 file photo, California state Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, right, leaves the San Francisco Federal Building in San Francisco. Yee, charged in a sweeping organized crime and public corruption case centered in San Francisco's Chinatown now also faces a racketeering charge. A federal grand jury on Friday, July 25, 2013 filed the additional charge against Yee. The grand jury says Yee took bribes in exchange for votes in favor of several legislative bills, including one on medical marijuana. Photo: Ben Margot, AP

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A federal grand jury on Friday charged a California state senator with more felonies in addition to the eight counts he already faced in a sweeping organized crime and public corruption case centered in San Francisco's Chinatown.

A new indictment unsealed in San Francisco federal court charged Sen. Leland Yee with racketeering and conspiracy "to obtain property under the color of official right." Those charges are in addition to the previous bribery, conspiracy and related charges.

Yee pleaded not guilty to the original eight charges. He will have to enter a plea Wednesday to the charges in the new indictment.

The new accusations allege that San Francisco Democrat offered to help pass legislation making it harder for professional football players to obtain workers compensation in California, in exchange for campaign contributions from an unidentified NFL owner.

The new indictment also accuses Yee of taking bribes in exchange for votes in favor of several bills, including one on medical marijuana and another to extend the life of the California State Athletic Commission.

Also charged with racketeering was Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow. The grand jury called a Chinese-American association that Chow headed, the Ghee Kung Tong, a racketeering enterprise.

Chow previously pleaded not guilty to money laundering and other charges.

Yee also is accused of accepting bribes and attempting to connect an undercover FBI agent with an arms dealer in exchange for cash. He has pleaded not guilty.

A call to Yee's attorney for comment on the additional charge was not immediately returned. An attorney for Chow, Curtis Briggs, said he was "completely underwhelmed" by the superseding indictment, which he said lacked new investigative findings or new accusations.

"It doesn't hold water, evidenced by the fact that they could have brought the racketeering charge in the first indictment," Briggs said. "We believe that he's innocent, we're still very optimistic about his case, and we look forward to the trial."

Yee was arrested with 19 others in March during coordinated raids throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.

The arrests were the culmination of an FBI investigation started in 2006 after Chow left prison and was elected "dragonhead" of the Ghee Kung Tong. The FBI says undercover agents laundered $2.6 million in cash purportedly garnered through illegal bookmaking through the organization.

[hskwarrior]

I hate the media. they love to twist a story to make it more interesting. GKT is not a criminal enterprise in the least. if our members are committing crimes it's on their own time and dime. as an officer of GKT i can verify we are not a "CRIMINAL ENTERPRISE"

[hskwarrior]

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=newssearch&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CB8QqQIoADAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sfexaminer.com%2Fsanfrancisco %2Fundercover-fbi-agent-was-removed-from-leland-yee-case%2FContent%3Foid%3D2874907&ei=IDzyU-H3B9TtoAT73IDABw&usg=AFQjCNFXvLcN-rjLgkDuOG1cle2qtFZZpA&sig2=Dx3jfvDFMuD8JD96Nh1DGg&bvm=bv.73231344,d.cGU

[GeneChing]

I lived in Daly City for a few years. This photo brings back memories of that fog bank.


Wilson Lim, Daly City dentist charged in Leland Yee case, dies (http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Daly-City-dentist-charged-in-Leland-Yee-probe-dies-5716081.php)
Henry K. Lee and Hamed Aleaziz
Updated 4:56 pm, Wednesday, August 27, 2014

http://ww1.hdnux.com/photos/27/20/25/6096244/3/628x471.jpg
The office of Wilson Lim D.M.D., who was indicted along with Leland Yee, in Daly City, Calif. on March 29, 2014. Photo: Deborah Svoboda, The Chronicle

A Daly City dentist whose indictment during the corruption investigation of state Sen. Leland Yee and alleged Chinatown mobster Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow was one of the more peculiar aspects of the sprawling federal case, has died of natural causes, his attorney said Wednesday.

Dr. Wilson Lim died early Tuesday at Kindred Hospital in San Leandro. He was 60, and maintained his innocence, said attorney Brian Getz.

"Dr. Lim was the finest man I ever represented, a tireless servant of his community who gave excellent dental care to all who needed it whether or not they could pay," Getz said.

Getz said the indictment against his client would be dismissed "after I obtain and file a death certificate."

The U.S. attorney's office declined to comment Wednesday.

Lim, a former member of San Mateo County's Mental Health and Substance Abuse Recovery Commission, was one of the more unlikely figures to be charged in the Yee case. A native of the Philippines, he kept a modest dental office on Mission Street in Daly City and had no criminal record.

Dr. Eddy Lim, a dentist who worked with Wilson Lim and is not related to him, said Wednesday that he believed the criminal case "probably worsened his condition." He said he believed Wilson Lim was innocent.

"He was a good man," he said. "He took care of his employees."

But federal prosecutors said Wilson Lim agreed to deliver weapons from the Philippines military to an undercover FBI agent posing as an East Coast member of the Mafia.

Lim and Yee were among more than two dozen people charged in an investigation that targeted a brotherhood organization in San Francisco's Chinatown headed by Chow - a group with which Lim had no apparent ties.

The investigation extended to Yee after an undercover FBI agent who had infiltrated Chow's group was introduced to the senator and allegedly persuaded him to trade political favors for campaign contributions. Lim became enmeshed in the case due to his political backing of Yee.

According to a 137-page FBI affidavit, Yee introduced Lim to the undercover agent as a man who could secure guns. The agent, the FBI said, had asked Yee to facilitate an arms deal in exchange for more campaign money.

The accusations prompted the Philippines government to open a probe into whether Lim had links to a military captain willing to funnel automatic rifles and other arms to him.

Lim's supporters called the scenario preposterous, noting the dentist's health and financial problems, which included a bankruptcy in 2012.

Lim was admitted to the intensive care unit of Seton Medical Center in Daly City on June 18 and was suffering from congestive heart failure, kidney failure and liver failure, according to filings by Getz in July and earlier this month.

The attorney had asked that in-person court appearances by his client be waived.

Henry K. Lee and Hamed Aleaziz are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. E-mail: hlee@sfchronicle.com, haleaziz@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @henryklee, @haleaziz

[hskwarrior]

yeah he died a few days ago and is lucky he won't have to serve any jail time now hahaha

[GeneChing]

I've been wondering how the mayor has kept out of this. Turns out he hasn't.


Intrigue (http://www.sfgate.com/default/article/49er-player-not-IDd-in-Santa-Clara-City-Council-5769789.php): An attorney for onetime Chinatown gangster Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow - charged along with state Sen. Leland Yee and 27 others in a wide-ranging political corruption scandal - has accused San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee in a lawsuit of failing to disclose a $500 contribution from an undercover FBI agent.

The suit filed in San Francisco Superior Court on Friday says the mayor should have revealed a $500 contribution he received from "Michael Anthony King" - believed to be an FBI agent posing as an Atlanta-area businessman. Lee reported the donation in his campaign filings, but didn't flag it when one of Chow's attorneys, Cory Briggs, recently made a public records request to his office for any information that might link the mayor to the federal probe.

Mayoral spokeswoman Christine Falvey said Lee's office had "responded appropriately" to the request - noting that political contributions are controlled by a separate campaign committee, not the mayor's office.

The mayor's campaign reported the King contribution in a financial-disclosure document with the city Ethics Commission on March 15, 2012. That's about the time former school board President Keith Jackson, who had been introducing the undercover FBI agent around town, attended a small mayoral debt retirement party for Lee hosted by then-Human Rights Commission member Nazly Mohajer.

Jackson is now among those facing charges - in his case for alleged racketeering and engaging in a murder-for-hire conspiracy.

We've reported that undercover FBI agents contributed a total of $20,000 to Lee's 2011 election effort, but his campaign people have insisted until now that they couldn't confirm the donations. The significance of a contribution from "Michael King" wasn't clear until after the indictment, when it was reported that that was the undercover agent's pseudonym.

The lawsuit seeks to force Lee to comply with the public records request.

"We take these assertions seriously, and if and when the mayor's campaign receives any specific information, we will take appropriate actions," said campaign treasurer and attorney Kevin Heneghan.

[hskwarrior]

The only way they can keep people interested in this story is to keep dragging Shrimp Boy's name through all of this but he had nothing to do with ED LEE

[hskwarrior]

notice how there's one thing missing in this article?? Raymond Chow's lack of direct involvement other than the dragging of his name into everything????????

http://www.sfexaminer.com/sanfrancisco/leland-yee-case-filing-alleges-unidentified-politician-took-money-from-undercover-agent/Content?oid=2906855

[bawang]

there is only one important question, does raymond get the poosy, is he a poosy slayer.

[GeneChing]

...it needs drones and a quarterback. :rolleyes:



FBI: Aircraft used in Yee-Chow probe wasn’t a drone (http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/matier-ross/article/FBI-Aircraft-used-in-Yee-Chow-probe-wasn-t-a-5894797.php)
By Matier & Ross
Updated 5:33 pm, Saturday, November 15, 2014

http://ww4.hdnux.com/photos/31/32/30/6661667/7/920x920.jpg
Photo: Michael Macor / Michael Macor / The Chronicle
Attorneys Tony Serra and Curtis Briggs (left) speak to the media after their client Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow pleaded not guilty in July.


The FBI took to the air during its corruption probe of state Sen. Leland Yee and alleged Chinatown gangster Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow, sending up an aircraft to observe a marijuana grow house in Antioch supposedly operated by one of Chow’s sidekicks.

Chow’s attorneys Tony Serra and Curtis Briggs said in a court filing that they had come across a video in an “unmarked orphan file” — footage from what they thought was a drone “surveilling a local family.” Some members of the family, who sources say lived in Antioch, were later arrested.

But FBI Special Agent Greg Wuthrich squelched any speculation that the feds had deployed a drone during the Yee-Chow investigation, saying, “I can definitely confirm that it was a manned aircraft.”

Whatever was hovering in the air, Briggs tells us, was used widely during the investigation, in “multiple cities” — and he questioned whether the payoff “would warrant this type of inclusive invasion of people’s rights.”

“Many citizens in San Francisco were picked up, probably as a byproduct of aerial surveillance, but the entire city was subject to this type of spying,” Briggs said. “They could make out your child’s face on a playground from 6,000 feet above.”

According to the defense filing, an FBI aircraft circled between 3,500 and 6,500 feet over the suspected grow house in a residential cul-de-sac for more than an hour during broad daylight in June 2012.

The camera had the ability to “zoom in extremely close on front porches, license plates, on various objects on the ground, and had a GPS target location specified on the screen,” Chow’s attorneys wrote.

Sources familiar with the case tell us the target of the Antioch aerial surveillance was Michael Mei, a driver for Chow who allegedly grew marijuana sold by Chow’s Chinatown gang. Mei’s parents were arrested at the house in October 2012 but were never charged, sources say.

Mei was charged by the feds in March with a narcotics violation as part of the sweeping public corruption case that also includes Yee, Chow and 26 other defendants.

The case has been full of surprising turns, including evidence that the FBI passed phony contributions to Yee and even Mayor Ed Lee’s 2011 election campaign, and unsuccessfully tried to pull a sting on former 49ers star Joe Montana.

In their court filing, Chow’s attorneys questioned whether the U.S. attorney’s office was even aware of the Antioch video, since “the government makes no mention of having disclosed, or intending to disclose, footage” of any aerial surveillance.

In September 2013, a U.S. Justice Department inspector general’s audit said the FBI had spent more than $3 million since 2004 for a small fleet of drones to track criminal suspects and examine crime scenes.

Law enforcement’s use of drones is the subject of growing debate in the Bay Area, with groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union raising concerns.

And those worries haven’t been lost on the FBI locally. “What I can say is that during the (Yee-Chow) investigation, zero drones were used,” Wuthrich said.

[hskwarrior]

Chinatown gang of raymond chow selling weed? ROTFLMFFAO........what a joke.

[hskwarrior]

there is only one important question, does raymond get the poosy, is he a poosy slayer.

his girl is pretty fine. but yes, the ladies throw themselves at him. seen it first hand.

[hskwarrior]

http://www.modernluxury.com/san-francisco/story/the-shrimp-boy-sessions-exclusive-four-part-conversation-the-alleged-gang-boss

[GeneChing]

I'm posting this here because it's the only thread that mentions Yank Sing (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?67441-Shrimp-Boy-and-the-Senator&p=1264278#post1264278). If you know SF Chinatown or downtown, you know Yank Sing. I actually had lunch there with the late great Lou Reed (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/magazine/article.php?article=318) once. I always thought the food there was overrated and overpriced, but Lou loved it and he was very, very picky.


Yank Sing workers get $4 million settlement from ownership (http://insidescoopsf.sfgate.com/blog/2014/11/19/yank-sing-workers-get-4-million-settlement/)
Posted on 11/19/2014 at 6:30 am by Paolo Lucchesi in Controversy, featured

At a time where restaurant labor practices are the subject of continued discussion and debate, one of San Francisco’s most popular restaurants has paid a massive labor settlement to its workers.

Today, Yank Sing announced that it has reached a $4 million dollar backpay and benefits settlement for 280 affected current and former employees. Between its two locations, Yank Sing currently employs 90 full-time staffers (30 hours or more per week) and 60 part-time staffers. On an average weekend, Yank Sing will do more than 1,000 covers a day at its Rincon Center location, and another 300 at its Stevenson location.

In summer 2013, a group of Yank Sing employees — with the help of the Chinese Progressive Association and the Asian Law Caucus — confronted the Chan family, which owns the restaurants, with a host of labor violations, namely ones surrounding overtime pay, tips and wage theft, and shift breaks.

“It was all pretty blatant,” California Labor Commissioner Julie Su told the Los Angeles Times. Su’s staff led the investigation along with the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement.

Yank Sing director of operations Jonathan Glick chalks up some of the violations to a “very bad job at keeping paperwork.” After the initial shock of the violations, Glick says that the Chans addressed the complaints and accusations.

Furthermore, the employees petitioned management for improved long-term working conditions beyond the legal minimum — which the Chans have also implemented.

“We had a plethora of meetings with all the parties involved and went to a mediation,” Glick says. “(The $4 million figure) represents everything – all of the issues. It’s a comprehensive settlement. ”

Glick, who has been at Yank Sing since October 2013, admits that Yank Sing ownership made mistakes: “We’ve taken responsibility for them. We are compensating for the past, and have put in place a structure that ensures we will be a company that our workers enjoy working at for a long time in the future.”

He adds that now employees get things like a salary that is more than the minimum wage, full benefits, full health care, vacation days and the like.

“We’ve taken steps that are socially conscious in terms of respect and benefits for our employees. For example, we as a restaurant applaud San Francisco’s passing of minimum wage increases. It will benefit so many of our employees in a positive way.”

Yank Sing Rincon Center: 101 Spear St., San Francisco. (415) 781-1111 or yanksing.com

Yank Sing Stevenson: 49 Stevenson St., San Francisco. (415) 541-4949 or yanksing.com

[GeneChing]

Thursday, December 18, 2014 Last Update: 4:50 PM PT
June Trial Set in Yee Corruption Case (http://www.courthousenews.com/2014/12/18/june-trial-set-in-yee-corruption-case.htm)
By MARIA DINZEO

SAN FRANCISCO (CN) - Suspended California state Sen. Leland Yee could face a jury as early as June for charges of political corruption and conspiracy to import guns.
At a scheduling conference on Thursday, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer said Yee will be tried along with his political consultant Keith Jackson, who also faces drug and murder-for-hire charges. Breyer said those charges will be tried separately, but lawyers for the defendants, including Yee's lawyer James Lassart, were not satisfied.
"The firearms charges are going to be extremely prejudicial. The government has acquired 50 to 70 different firearms that, undoubtedly to some degree, there is going to be an attempt to introduce those," Lassart said. "It's the kind of thing that does not cancel from someone's mind if they're sitting in the courtroom."
The government's indictment claims that Yee, who sought to retire debt from his failed 2011 San Francisco mayoral bid and raise money for his subsequent Secretary of State campaign, agreed to vote on certain legislation, help phony companies get state grants and contracts, and offered to import guns from a suspected terrorist group in the Philippines in exchange for campaign donations.
Jackson is accused of arranging the meetings and soliciting the donations. Yee and Jackson have pleaded not guilty.
Both were arrested during an FBI raid in March 2013. The raid also ensnared Jackson's son Brandon and sports agent Marlon Sullivan, who are charged with narcotics conspiracy, murder for hire and unlicensed firearms dealing. Breyer said they will be tried with the elder Jackson and Yee, but only on the weapons charge. Two dozen other defendants, including marquee defendant Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow, leader of the Chinese American fraternal organization Chee Kung Tong, are still awaiting trial.
But Breyer has been adamant from the outset about breaking case into manageable parts. "I can't have 28 defendants. This isn't Nuremberg," he said Thursday.
Referring to the indictment, Breyer said, "When I went through it, I went with the concern of how Mr. Yee would be unduly prejudiced. But as I recall the indictment did tie in as an allegation certain evidentiary facts which support the position that some, not all, of the weapons violations do involve Mr. Yee."
Yet Lassart said that Yee will be prejudiced by the "Uzis and AK47s that are going to be laying around the courtroom," even though guns were never found during FBI sweeps of Yee's house or office in Sacramento. "The impact of these weapons, and I'm very familiar of how a jury reacts to a weapon in the courtroom, you put 50 of them and it looks like the senator is absolutely engaged in that activity."
He added, "We understand the corruption charge and the single conspiracy discussion. I suggest it should be a trial of Keith and my client alone."
Brandon Jackson's lawyer Tony Tamburello also protested.
"There's going to be a parade of guns, a shower of guns," Tamburello said. "This is such an emotional thing, these guns, so how are they going to separate political corruption and guns? You're putting together an emotional situation that the jury is not going to be able to separate and will prejudice everyone in this case, and that's what the government wants."
James Brosnahan, lawyer for Keith Jackson, also said the political corruption charges should be tried separately.
"You said a jury might think this isn't really criminal. Well this is a great country and they should have that chance. They shouldn't have guns in front of them. You have a right to make political contributions and petition your government. That's your right. That deserves separate attention by this court," Brosnahan told Breyer.
But the judge held fast to his plan, again noting that he had already separated out the narcotics and murder for hire charges, in which Yee had no evidentiary involvement.
Jury selection will begin on June 1, but the trial will not start before June 22, he said.

We'll take this up in late June then...

[hskwarrior]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwgNq8DHIfk

[GeneChing]

Ex-Sen. Leland Yee pleads not guilty to expanded charges (http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Former-state-Sen-Leland-Yee-enters-plea-on-new-6064943.php)
By Bob Egelko
Updated 3:04 pm, Thursday, February 5, 2015

http://ww3.hdnux.com/photos/27/14/04/6078742/13/920x920.jpg
Senator Leland Yee is chased by reporters as he leaves the federal building in San Francisco, CA, Wednesday Mar. 26, 2014. Photo: Michael Short, The Chronicle
Photo: Michael Short, The Chronicle

Former state Sen. Leland Yee pleaded not guilty Thursday to an expanded indictment in his corruption case that included two new charges of money-laundering.

The San Francisco Democrat was first charged in April, along with more than two dozen other defendants, of accepting $62,000 in bribes from FBI agents posing as contributors in exchange for legislative favors, and for illegally importing firearms from the Philippines.

A new indictment in July accused Yee and Keith Jackson, a former San Francisco school board president who acted as Yee’s consultant and fundraiser, of using the senator’s unsuccessful campaigns for San Francisco mayor in 2011 and California secretary of state last year as “racketeering enterprises” to collect illicit contributions.

The latest federal grand jury indictment, issued Jan. 29, added allegations that Yee and Jackson had tried to conceal the source of bribes the senator allegedly received for arranging a meeting between a purported donor and another lawmaker and for smuggling guns from the Philippines.

They are accused of accepting $11,000 from an undercover agent in June 2013 to set up the meeting, and of trying to cover their tracks by soliciting $12,600 in campaign contributions from three unidentified donors and paying them back in cash. In similar transactions, they are charged with accepting $6,800 from another agent in March 2014 as part of the gun-running agreement, then soliciting and repaying $3,000 in contributions from two more unidentified donors.

The two money-laundering charges are punishable by up to 20 years in prison, the same penalty that applies to the bribery and conspiracy charges Yee and Jackson already faced.

Both men are free on bail and are scheduled to go to trial in U.S. District Court in June, along with two other defendants. A separate trial is planned later this year for 24 more defendants, including Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow, a former Chinatown gang leader who is accused of running a Chinese American community organization as a racketeering enterprise that trafficked in drugs, weapons and stolen goods.

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @egelko


Small update.

[hskwarrior]

A separate trial is planned later this year for 24 more defendants, including Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow, a former Chinatown gang leader who is accused of running a Chinese American community organization as a racketeering enterprise that trafficked in drugs, weapons and stolen goods.


this is the biggest **** lie there is. the GKT is not nor has it ever been a criminal tong like some others out there.

[hskwarrior]

http://www.sfexaminer.com/sanfrancisco/raymond-shrimp-boy-chow-pleads-not-guilty-to-revised-indictment/Content?oid=2920006

[curenado]

Sounds like the more they dig around the worse it gets - or I guess the more details they put out to justify the charges. The pinch brick party cutting it's teeth on things bigger than "community building" scams ~

[hskwarrior]

in regards to Raymond Chow they don't have anything. they're just trying to fukk him with no vasiine

[bawang]

hes had a good life, even if he go to prison now he already 60 year old or something

u shud really focus ur outrage on something else frank, like those alabama kids caught hunting for black people

[curenado]

Bwahahaha!

[hskwarrior]

hes had a good life, even if he go to prison now he already 60 year old or something

u shud really focus ur outrage on something else frank, like those alabama kids caught hunting for black people

you can just shut the **** up. no one is outraged. **** those alabama country bumpkins. west side b1tch

[pazman]

no one is outraged.

Got those panties all rustled up.

[hskwarrior]

Got those panties all rustled up.

what you do with your father is none of my business pu$$y

[pazman]

9314

Which grinds your gears more, Shaolin-do, or Mountain Lard being locked up?

[hskwarrior]

Which grinds your gears more, Shaolin-do, or Mountain Lard being locked up?

i gave up my mission to insult shaolin do a long time ago you lame fukkin butt boy. you only wish you had a Mountain Lord while you're stuck with "Grand Dragon" of the KKK. on the other hand, you're still a poosey

[bawang]

i gave up my mission to insult shaolin do a long time ago you lame fukkin butt boy. you only wish you had a Mountain Lord while you're stuck with "Grand Dragon" of the KKK. on the other hand, you're still a poosey

i can b ur mountain lard

[hskwarrior]

i can b ur mountain lard

YOU are a TOP ......that's for sure.

you and spazman always fight to be the one on TOP i hear......

[pazman]

Frank, you can join the Mid-American Chinese Benevolence and Buffet Society, with mine and Bawang's help. If you work hard and become initiated, you would make a fine candidate for the Sushi Master position.

Search your feelings, Frank. It is your destiny.

[hskwarrior]

Frank, you can join the Mid-American Chinese Benevolence and Buffet Society, with mine and Bawang's help. If you work hard and become initiated, you would make a fine candidate for the Sushi Master position.

Search your feelings, Frank. It is your destiny.

sucka a$$ b1tch

[pazman]

sucka a$$ b1tch


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PBZOcjaYvA

Okay, if you can't handle Sushi Master position, you can work the Crab Rangoon station.

[hskwarrior]

for you Spazmaster


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=my7sxZ0KfHU

[hskwarrior]

9318

http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2015/02/15/lawyer-says-feds-withholding-evidence-that-would-prove-raymond-shrimp-boy-chow-innocent/#.VOFIJ-D-aPQ.facebook

[curenado]

Well if you have to cheat to win, you're giving side to the other guy.

[hskwarrior]

I hope and pray that Raymond sue's the **** out of the government for stealing more than a year of his life for NOTHING.

additionally, they are lynching the Ghee Kung Tong as a criminal organization, which is an OUTRIGHT LIE. I can speak in regards to this as I am a office holder. it is not in any way shape or form a criminal enterprise.

[curenado]

Tong does not mean criminal - it started out kinda meaning good guy.
Retribution Tong and such are hatchet men, which is what confuses some people. The guys with the hatchets get all the ink. Figures :)

[bawang]

did u get on san fran tv lol

[hskwarrior]

did u get on san fran tv lol

yes i did. I was at Allen Leung's funeral - the former MOUNTAIN LORD.
you can see both me and my sifu at 2:19


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBbXG3J-Yp0

im in here too....

[hskwarrior]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDESwxk8eCk

[hskwarrior]

I'm in this one too....

even the GREEN GRASS MONK is in there too......


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-1lUK0xMOM

[hskwarrior]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOTHKAybG0M

[hskwarrior]

9319

The Dragon Head

[mickey]

Greetings,

hakwarrior,

I am sensing a BIG money issue here. Is Raymond Chow's presence a thorn in the side of developers who are want to gentrify the area?


mickey

[curenado]

Aha! Good one. Probably. Kind of cool to see a real dragonhead that is a high dragon (ethics, service)
Good fortune to 'em. If it is a property grab, that has been getting out of hand in some places so not hard to imagine.

[hskwarrior]

Greetings,

hakwarrior,

I am sensing a BIG money issue here. Is Raymond Chow's presence a thorn in the side of developers who are want to gentrify the area?

could be. i know they are trying to claim that our tong is a criminal enterprise and so with that they can take away the building from us. but gentrification is changing the face of SF in a big..but not a good way for the locals.

[curenado]

In such a situation it seems like positive entities that unify and strengthen the sense of community would be the first to target. Away with the activists, priests and teachers. That would be strategic or look that way.

[mickey]

Greetings curenado,

What is really missing is what Raymond Chow means to the Chinese community. You do not get that from the youtube links. They use Chinese in law enforcement as the true "face" of San Francisco with regard to Raymond Chow. If the San Francisco Tongs are anything like the NYC Tongs, they are into land ownership. If you can drop 'em, their properties are up for grabs, as hskwarrior indicated. Al of the San francisco Tongs should have some kind of meeting to discuss this aspect because,IMO, they are not being targeted for corruption and more for their land holdings and the millions that can be made for developers and politicians.


mickey

[hskwarrior]

Bawang and sPazman are gay lovers

9328

[bawang]

u mad

sdfsfsdf

[hskwarrior]

i can't be mad at retarded children. you make them look great.

[pazman]

Frank, I think you need to chill, bro. Here, sit down and have a crab rangoon.
9329

[hskwarrior]

Frank, I think you need to chill, bro. Here, sit down and have a crab rangoon.

you can put the d1ck back in your mouth.

[pazman]

9330
Reppin West Side, mutha f'ers!

Big Impin' in the '15!

[hskwarrior]

Reppin West Side, mutha f'ers!

Big Impin' in the '15!

who the fuk is the snowflake? hahahahahahahahaah
poser

[pazman]

9332
I can post a picture of a kitten and Frank would still be mad.

[hskwarrior]

i'm not mad. i just happen to think you're a straight up pus$y.
you're just a silly hatin ass b1tch.

you're really not relevant in my world so this verbal sh1t is just playtime for me. you're a simp. it shows.

you might be relevant in Shaolin Do's world. but not the Real kung fu world.

[bawang]

YOU are a TOP ......that's for sure.

you and spazman always fight to be the one on TOP i hear......

I sexually identify as an AH-64 Apache attack helicopter.

[hskwarrior]

I sexually identify as an AH-64 Apache attack helicopter.

how many guys does that let inside you this time?

[bawang]

how many guys does that let inside you this time?

i have attack helicopter philia. i am only aroused by attack helicopter and VTOL aircraft.

[hskwarrior]

i have attack helicopter philia. i am only aroused by attack helicopter and VTOL aircraft.

so how many guys do you let ride inside you?

[bawang]

so how many guys do you let ride inside you?

i do not the understandings. are you the callings me be the homersexual. sory my englis no good

[hskwarrior]

i do not the understandings. are you the callings me be the homersexual. sory my englis no good

yes. you take it up the booty by other guys in uniform. only homersexual people act the way you do.

[bawang]

yes. you take it up the booty by other guys in uniform. only homersexual people act the way you do.

noe
kkjhkjhkjhkjhkjh

[hskwarrior]

yes, you are a homersexual

[bawang]

noe

dfgdfg

[hskwarrior]

i bet you're typing "NOE" while you're deep throating a chocokock

[bawang]

9333


kjhkjhkjhkjh

[curenado]

It's "engrish" don't you watch cartoons?

And don't let anybody talk you in to
9334
Even if you have been drinking!
It's a bad way

[hskwarrior]

thats a picture of Bawang crying over Spazman's death. fukkin sissy b1tch

http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=9333&d=1424711040

[bawang]

asdasfsdfsdfhttp://i.imgur.com/s7iVpTf.jpg

[hskwarrior]

BAWANG, Spazman, and Bawangs mom in a threesome

http://www.reactiongifs.com/r/2012/06/gay_dance.gif

[hskwarrior]

Bawang and his gang

http://i.imgur.com/Ea292Dq.gif

[bawang]

that guy actually looks exactly like u bro even wit the hat and errythang

[hskwarrior]

that guy actually looks exactly like u bro even wit the hat and errythang

thats just your weird and twisted fantasy of you and Spazman trying to twirk me.......

go pick the dingleberries out your teefeses fool

[bawang]

thats just your weird and twisted fantasy of you and Spazman trying to twirk me.......

go pick the dingleberries out your teefeses fool

spek amercan

i don spek no foren

[hskwarrior]

spek amercan

i don spek no foren

i know you can spek a mary can like a h0m0marsheeian

[hskwarrior]

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=161_1424753498

[GeneChing]

To get back on topic here...:rolleyes:

Bay Area News Group prevails in final ruling on Yee, Calderon calendars (http://www.mercurynews.com/my-town/ci_28254420/bang-prevails-final-ruling-yee-calderon-calendars)
By Matthew Artz
martz@bayareanewsgroup.com

Posted: 06/04/2015 04:24:25 PM PDT
Updated: about 12 hours ago

SACRAMENTO -- The state Senate must turn over key calendar information for two suspended senators, a Sacramento Superior Court judge has ruled, upholding a lawsuit filed by Bay Area News Group, publisher of this newspaper, and Los Angeles News Group.

Following up on a tentative ruling issued last month, Judge Michael Kenny wrote that the public's interest in seeing the records kept by Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco and Sen. Ron Calderon, D-Montebello -- both of whom are facing criminal prosecution -- outweighed the Senate's interest in keeping the records private.

"The disclosure of the calendars may indicate whether others were aware of the activities, or whether the legislators worked to hide the purpose of the meetings and identities of those with whom they were meeting," Kenny wrote.

A spokeswoman for Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de León wrote, "The Senate plans to fully comply with the judge's order," but she would not comment on whether the Senate would appeal the ruling.

An appeal would likely delay release of records.

Kenny's ruling, issued Tuesday and released Thursday, is seen as a major victory for transparency in Sacramento, where legislators have relied on a 1991 court ruling and the Legislative Open Records Act to argue that their calendars are exempt from public disclosure.

"To get calendars is huge," BANG's attorney, Duffy Carolan, said. "And it really is a warning shot to public officials that their calendars are not sacrosanct. And that who they are meeting with and what they are doing on the public dime when wrongdoing is involved can't be kept from the public."

Yee has been charged with public corruption, racketeering and weapons trafficking, and Calderon has been indicted on 24 counts, including public corruption, mail fraud, wire fraud, bribery and money laundering.

A BANG reporter and a LANG reporter filed a series of separate public requests in April and June 2014 asking for records corresponding to dates and individuals noted in federal indictments of the two suspended politicians. The Senate Rules Committee denied all of them.

In his final ruling, Kenny granted the newspapers Yee's and Calderon's calendar entries for specific dates mentioned in the criminal indictments. He also granted access to calendar entries over the course of three years pertaining to meetings with people who were indicted alongside Yee and Calderon, but denied access to meetings with people not indicted.

Kenny also denied access to requests for emails or expense reports concerning Yee's meetings with top campaign donation solicitors or requested expense reports from Yee. However, he did order the release of records that reflect proof of expenditures and travel by Calderon to Miami, Carolan said.

Kenny ordered attorneys for both sides to meet and catalog the documents that must be handed over.

While not all records were deemed public, First Amendment Coalition Executive Director Peter Scheer said that the ruling could have broad implications, including forcing the Legislature to also stop withholding documents that are connected to noncriminal misconduct.

"It's a significant win for access, and it's a significant loss for the legislative leadership and their lawyers," he said.

The state Legislature had claimed that the public interest was best served by not releasing the records, arguing that communications from private citizens carry a special "legislative privilege."

David Roberti, who led the Senate from 1980 to 1994, praised Kenny for trying to balance two competing interests, but said he was worried that the ruling would limit communication between legislators and their constituents, who wouldn't want their concerns made public. "It hinders the right to petition your government because there is the possibility that everyone will know you are doing it," he said. "It might only be for one day, but that is the kind of thing that could blossom out quite easily."

Contact Matthew Artz at 510-208-6435.

[GeneChing]

Trial delays are a common tactic by the defense as the ****her away from the crime the trial is, the less likely that the verdict will be guilty.


Former California Sen. Leland Yee seeks trial delay (http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article24780637.html)
Former state senator arrested last year on corruption charges
Ongoing production of evidence is ‘daunting,’ Yee’s attorney says

http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/1bmcpk/picture24780634/ALTERNATES/FREE_960/Yee
Former state Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, at a press conference in February 2013. | Randall Benton The Sacramento Bee file

By Alexei Koseff
akoseff@sacbee.com

Former state Sen. Leland Yee is seeking a delay in the start of his upcoming trial on charges related to public corruption, illegals arms dealing and racketeering.

In a filing on Tuesday evening, the San Francisco Democrat said the continuing introduction of “significant” new evidence into discovery would make it difficult to prepare by the Aug. 10 trial date.

The “amount of documentary evidence, body wire and consensual call records, and wiretap recordings is monumental and the production is ongoing,” Yee’s attorney, James A. Lassart, wrote. “Analyzing the discovery (that continues to be produced by the government) is daunting.”

Yee was arrested last year for allegedly trading favors to help retire his campaign debts. He has pleaded not guilty to the litany of charges, including accepting money to influence medical marijuana legislation and offering to facilitate an international arms deal, for which he faces up to 165 years in prison and as much as $2.25 million in penalties.

Yee’s trial was previously delayed in March by seven weeks, from June 22 to Aug. 10. A separate corruption trial for former Sen. Ron Calderon was also recently postponed by more than six months.

[GeneChing]

Change of plea. Cutting a deal perhaps?


Ex-Sen. Leland Yee may be headed for a plea deal (http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Ex-Sen-Leland-Yee-may-be-headed-for-a-plea-deal-6358941.php)
By Bob Egelko Updated 7:30 pm, Tuesday, June 30, 2015

http://ww3.hdnux.com/photos/27/21/40/6101002/5/920x920.jpg
Photo: Lea Suzuki, The Chronicle
Former state Sen. Leland Yee leaves the Federal Building in San Francisco after a bond hearing in 2014. Yee, who has denied all charges, is free on bail.

Former state Sen. Leland Yee, who until now has denied charges of political corruption, money laundering and racketeering, is scheduled to change his plea in federal court Wednesday.
A federal judge has calendared change-of-plea hearings for Yee and three co-defendants who had been scheduled to go to trial Aug. 10. Such hearings are held to enable criminal defendants to plead guilty, usually after negotiations with the prosecutor.
The other defendants are former San Francisco school board President Keith Jackson, who served as a consultant and fundraiser for Yee; Jackson’s son Brandon; and sports agent Marlon Sullivan.
Defense lawyers could not be reached for comment Tuesday. Abraham Simmons, spokesman for U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag, declined to comment.
Yee, D-San Francisco, was arrested March 26, 2014, and initially was charged with accepting $62,000 in bribes from FBI agents posing as contributors in exchange for legislative favors. The favors included voting for several bills, setting up a meeting for an agent who posed as a medical marijuana supplier and agreeing to illegally import firearms from the Philippines.
He is also accused of agreeing with Keith Jackson to use Yee’s unsuccessful campaigns for San Francisco mayor in 2011 and for California secretary of state last year, as “racketeering enterprises” to collect illicit contributions.
Another federal grand jury indictment in January added money-laundering charges, alleging that Yee and Keith Jackson had tried to conceal the source of bribes the senator allegedly received for arranging a meeting between a purported donor and another lawmaker, and for smuggling guns. They were accused of accepting $11,000 from an undercover agent in June 2013 to set up the meeting, and of trying to cover their tracks by soliciting $12,600 in campaign contributions from three unidentified donors and paying them back in cash. They were also charged with accepting $6,800 from another agent in March 2014 as part of the gun-running agreement.
Keith Jackson was separately charged with conspiring to arrange a murder for hire, an alleged plot against a fictitious victim set up by an FBI agent.
Several of the charges are punishable by up to 20 years in prison. Actual sentences are usually much lower, especially for those without previous criminal records.
Still, in view of the seriousness of the accusations and Yee’s position in public office, “it’s hard to believe that it won’t involve several years of prison time,” said Robert Weisberg, a Stanford criminal law professor.
The most common reasons for a pretrial plea agreement, Weisberg said, are that “the prosecutor’s offering something they hadn’t offered before, or the defendant ran out of options for trial strategy.” With multiple defendants, he said, it’s also common for some to agree to testify against others in exchange for a reduced sentence.
Yee, now free on bail, was suspended by the state Senate after his arrest. His Senate term expired in January. He also suspended his campaign for secretary of state.
Also charged, and facing a separate trial, are two dozen other defendants, including Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow, a former gang leader in San Francisco’s Chinatown. He is accused of running an established Chinese American community organization, the Ghee Kung Tong, as a racketeering enterprise that trafficked in drugs, weapons and stolen goods.
Yee was not accused of taking part in any crimes with Chow, but the charges against the former legislator include winning passage of a Senate resolution honoring Chow’s organization in exchange for a bribe. Federal prosecutors said Keith Jackson, an associate of Chow’s, was the link between Chow and Yee.

[hskwarrior]

He is accused of running an established Chinese American community organization, the Ghee Kung Tong, as a racketeering enterprise that trafficked in drugs, weapons and stolen goods.

As an officer of the Ghee Kung Tong, i state very clearly, the allegation in respect to GKT being a criminal enterprise is absolutely FALSE.

[GeneChing]

Again, front page of the SF Chron today.

We'll see how this plays out for Chow, hskwarrior. Yee might have given up more as part of the plea deal.


Former state Sen. Leland Yee pleads guilty in corruption case (http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Former-Sen-Leland-Yee-changes-plea-to-guilty-in-6360935.php)
By Bob Egelko and Evan Sernoffsky Updated 7:09 pm, Wednesday, July 1, 2015

http://ww2.hdnux.com/photos/37/34/62/8244385/3/920x920.jpg
Leland Yee rushed to get into a waiting car as he left the Federal building in San Francisco. Yee pleaded guilty Wednesday July 1, 2015 to charges of racketeering and admitting he accepted bribes. Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle

Former state Sen. Leland Yee faces years in federal prison after admitting Wednesday that he took bribes from undercover FBI agents in exchange for promises to vote on legislation, arrange meetings for his purported donors, and illegally smuggle guns from the Philippines.

The longtime public official — who only last year was a candidate for California secretary of state — pleaded guilty to a felony charge of using that short-lived campaign as a “racketeering enterprise” to solicit funds from agents who posed as contributors.

In his plea agreement, filed in federal court in San Francisco, Yee, 67, said he had agreed to “conduct ... the affairs of the campaign through a pattern of racketeering activity.” He said his transactions with the agents took place between October 2012 and March 2014 and netted him $34,600.

The charge is punishable by up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Yee’s plea agreement did not recommend a specific sentence. But a plea agreement signed by his former consultant and fundraiser, Keith Jackson, who admitted to the same charge, called for a prison term of between six and 10 years. Jackson, 50, is a former San Francisco school board president.

Convicted racketeers must also forfeit all ill-gotten gains. Yee agreed to relinquish $33,466 that the government seized during its investigation. He will also lose his right to vote during any time he spends in prison or on supervised release, the federal equivalent of parole.

U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer will have the final word on sentencing at a hearing scheduled Oct. 21. Also pleading guilty Wednesday, to a separate racketeering charge, were Jackson’s son Brandon and sports agent Marlon Sullivan.

All four had been scheduled to go to trial Aug. 10 in the first of several trials stemming from a five-year undercover investigation that led to a wide-ranging corruption indictment by a federal grand jury. Two dozen defendants are awaiting trial, including Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow, a former gang leader in San Francisco’s Chinatown.

Chow’s camp vows to fight

Chow is accused of running an established Chinese American community organization, the Ghee Kung Tong, as a racketeering enterprise that trafficked in drugs, weapons and stolen goods. Chow’s lawyers have vowed to fight the charges, which they say were manufactured by the FBI.

Prosecutors bolstered their accusations against Chow’s organization Wednesday in the plea agreements signed by Brandon Jackson and Sullivan, both of whom pleaded guilty to taking part in a racketeering conspiracy with the Ghee Kung Tong.

While some members of the organization were “strictly involved ... in legal functions,” both men said, others were involved in such activities as drug dealing, robbery, extortion, illegal gun possession and murder for hire.

Neither Brandon Jackson nor Sullivan is likely to repeat those allegations at Chow’s trial, however. None of the four plea agreements requires the defendants to testify or cooperate with the prosecutors, an unusual omission in a case with multiple defendants.

Yee was not accused of taking part in any crimes with Chow. But the former senator admitted accepting a $6,800 bribe from a purported campaign contributor to sponsor a Senate resolution honoring the Ghee Kung Tong, which one of Yee’s staffers presented at an event in March 2013. Prosecutors said undercover agents encountered Yee through Keith Jackson, who was also an associate of Chow’s.

Yee, who remains free on bail, had no comment after leaving court Wednesday. Two defense lawyers spoke up, however, saying the FBI was at least partly responsible for their clients’ actions.

“The FBI started by hiring Mr. Jackson and paying him money to do perfectly lawful things,” said Keith Jackson’s lawyer, James Brosnahan. “They also promised great wealth. After they had done that, they began to embroil him in the matter that brings him to his plea.

“What authorized them to come into the Bay Area and do what they did? Is this government doing what we want them to do? My answer is no.”

Brandon Jackson’s lawyer, Tony Tamburello, said federal agents went about “ensnaring this young man.”

Yee’s guilty plea marked the downfall of a veteran politician who spent 26 years in elected office. After his arrest March 26, 2014, he suspended his campaign for secretary of state, but nevertheless finished third in the June primary, with more than 9 percent of the vote. He was also suspended by his state Senate colleagues for the remainder of his legislative term, which ended in January.

Yee ran unsuccessfully for mayor of San Francisco in 2011. Prosecutors said Yee was trying to pay off the debt from his mayoral campaign with the money he solicited from undercover agents.

A child psychologist by training, Yee was first elected to the San Francisco Board of Education in 1988 and was the board’s president during the second of his two terms. He won election to the Board of Supervisors from the Sunset District in 1996 and left in the middle of his second term to run successfully for the Assembly, where he was part of the Democratic leadership team. He won the first of his two Senate terms in 2006.

Yee’s record as a legislator included sponsorship of legislation banning the sale of violent video games to minors, a law that was later ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court. He was also known as an advocate of open government and of gun control.

But one of the allegations he admitted Wednesday was agreeing to illegally import weapons, including automatic firearms, from the Philippines in a March 2014 meeting with Jackson, an undercover agent and another defendant, the now-deceased Wilson Lim. The agent paid him $6,800 in cash, Yee said.

He also acknowledged that, in exchange for purported contributions, he arranged a meeting between a donor and another senator to discuss marijuana legislation; agreed to recommend another donor’s software company for a state contract; and promised to vote for legislation restricting California workers’ compensation payments to injured National Football League players.

Some charges tossed

As part of Wednesday’s plea agreements, prosecutors dismissed additional charges against the defendants, including money-laundering charges against Yee and Keith Jackson and an allegation that Jackson agreed to commit a murder for hire against a fictitious victim concocted by the FBI. The alleged murder plot resurfaced in Brandon Jackson’s plea agreement, which said an agent posing as a drug dealer told the younger Jackson, his father and Sullivan in December 2013 that he needed to have an associate killed.

Two months later, Brandon Jackson said, the agent met with him and Sullivan at a San Francisco restaurant and asked them not to kill the victim in the agent’s presence. The two “assured (the agent) that would not happen,” Jackson said.

Bob Egelko and Evan Sernoffsky are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. E-mail: begelko@sfchronicle.com and esernoffsky@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @egelko and @evansernoffsky

[mickey]

Greetings,

It is all about real estate and all the monies that can be made with it, baybeeeee.

There is a feral need to break the tongs for that to happen; so, to do that, let's color them all bad.



mickey

[David Jamieson]

Trial delays are a common tactic by the defense as the ****her away from the crime the trial is, the less likely that the verdict will be guilty.

This is true.
It also reveals a fundamental flaw in regards to the legal system and that is dependency on eye witness testimony and other peoples recollections of events.

There are breakthroughs in the knowledge of memory that indicates that as a species we are not very good at recollecting reality and most of our memories are constructs of perceptions and have little if anything to do with what really happened even in traumatic experiences.

Anyway, it is this flaw that allows for this sort of action to happen IE: hold a trial away from people who have been exposed to the story and that have developed a perception of the story in their own minds.

Anyway, this came to mind with your mentioning of it.

For what it's worth, in science, "eye witness" testimony is the least valued data, while repeatable outcomes through steps is the most valuable. Eye witness doesn't matter when something is either real or unreal. Except in law. Go figure, but this is also why so many people get thrown in prison for things they have never done.

[GeneChing]

There are vids if you follow the link.


'SHRIMP BOY' ACCUSES SAN FRANCISCO MAYOR IN BID TO DISMISS CASE (http://abc7news.com/news/shrimp-boy-accuses-san-francisco-mayor-in-bid-to-dismiss-case/903265/)

Attorneys for Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow filed a motion Tuesday that claims the FBI has evidence of San Francisco officials accepting illegal money, but federal prosecutors refuse to go after them.

By Carolyn Tyler
Tuesday, August 04, 2015 12:00AM

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- The reputed gangster at the center of San Francisco's ongoing bribery and corruption case is pointing the finger at scores of top city leaders, including Mayor Ed Lee. Attorneys for Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow filed a motion Tuesday that claims the FBI has evidence of those officials accepting illegal money, but federal prosecutors refuse to go after them.

The allegations are explosive. Chow's attorney Curtis Briggs say there is audio evidence of pay to play politics by city officials and if prosecutors won't go after the elected officials, they should let Chow go.

"Is the FBI corrupt? Or are politicians corrupt? But I guarantee you it's one or the other," said Briggs.

Chow, along with seven others, will go on trial this fall on charges of racketeering, money laundering, and trafficking drugs and weapons. The charges came after a lengthy federal investigation. Now Chow's attorneys say it was selective prosecution and that FBI documents show San Francisco's mayor should also have been indicted.

"According to the FBI, he sat down with federal agents undercover, he took money from them, his staff took money from them, he was supposedly knowledgeable about what the money was for and he attempted to pay up on the bribe," Briggs said.

Late Tuesday afternoon, Lee fired back, saying the accusations are old and untrue.

"Everybody makes whatever allegations they want to make for the sensationalism," he said. "These things have been thoroughly vetted and as far as I'm concerned, they're warrantless."

But Chow's attorneys say that according to the FBI documents, Lee and at least half a dozen city officials were involved, with one allegedly telling the FBI that former Mayor Willie Brown told them, "You pay to play here. We got it. We know this. We are the best at this game. Better than New York. We do it a little more sophisticated than New Yorkers and we do it without the mafia."

Chow's lawyer says Supervisor London Breed was named in the FBI documents. She calls allegations against her baseless and says "I'm not angry, it's just very sad."

And Briggs says it's possible the FBI could be wrong.

"I'm not saying the FBI is telling the truth, we might find out that the FBI has completely lied," he said.

ABC7 News reached out to former Mayor Willie Brown, but have not heard back. The U.S. Attorney's Office has not commented.

[David Jamieson]

9333


kjhkjhkjhkjh

pepe and feels ...

bawang is a 4channer, confirmed! lol

[GeneChing]

Actually, I don't think this is the same article I read two hours ago. Maybe that hasn't been posted on SFGATE yet. But this is huge news in my 'hood. I hate to see another Chinese politician get indicated here but justice must be served.


S.F. Mayor Lee: Bribery allegations like reading a comic book (http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/SF-Mayor-Lee-Allegations-of-bribery-like-reading-6427251.php)
By Emily Green, Heather Knight and Debra J. Saunders Updated 9:10 pm, Wednesday, August 5, 2015

http://ww2.hdnux.com/photos/27/32/27/6137309/21/920x920.jpg
In this image provided by Jen Siska, Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow, is seen posing for a portrait in San Francisco in July 2007. Investigators say Chow is the leader of one of the most powerful Asian gangs in North America. Chow's gang is said to have lured state Sen. Leland Yee into its clutches through money and campaign contributions in exchange for legislative help, as Yee sought to build his campaign coffers to run for California secretary of state. Yee and Chow were both arraigned on federal gun and corruption charges on Wednesday, March 26, 2014. (AP Photo/Jen Siska)

Mayor Ed Lee on Wednesday shrugged off a court filing by attorneys for an alleged Chinatown gang leader that claims the mayor took bribes and engaged in pay-to-play politics.

“They’re kind of like orangutans trying to deflect attention,” Lee said of Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow and his attorneys.

On Tuesday, attorneys for Chow filed documents in federal court claiming the U.S. attorney’s office selectively targeted Chow when FBI agents were investigating corruption by politicians and local civil rights leaders. In addition to Lee, Chow’s defense team alleged improprieties by Board of Supervisors President London Breed, Supervisor Malia Cohen, former Supervisor Amos Brown and NAACP official the Rev. Arnold Townsend.

None of them were charged, and all — excluding Brown, who couldn’t be reached for comment — denied the allegations.

Sign of desperation

Legal observers called the accusations by Chow’s defense team a desperation attempt to have his indictment dismissed, but said they could nonetheless prove politically damaging to those cited. The filing quotes FBI agents and wiretaps and reveals how extensive the FBI’s investigation was and how many politicians it touched.

Chow’s attorneys, J. Tony Serra and Curtis Briggs, claimed the FBI has evidence that the mayor “took substantial bribes in exchange for political favors.” They don’t say what political favors Lee allegedly granted.

In a telephone interview Wednesday, Lee called the allegations “sensational” and said reading them was like reading a comic book.

“It’s sad they have to draw me into this,” he said, adding that there is no merit in the allegations that he took bribes or engaged in pay-to-play politics.

“This is not the way we run city government,” he said. “I’ve been associated with city government for 21 years, and we do things the right way.”

Chow is charged with running a Chinese American community organization as a racketeering enterprise. The filing by his attorneys Tuesday is a “motion to dismiss for selective prosecution,” meaning he was unconstitutionally targeted.

Specifically, Chow’s attorneys cite materials claiming that businessman Derf Butler paid Breed with “untraceable debit cards for clothing and trips in exchange for advantages on contracts in San Francisco.” They accuse Townsend — an associate minister at Church Without Walls who is also vice chairman of the local chapter of the NAACP — of being “unapologetically on the payroll” of an undercover FBI agent in exchange for “Townsend’s apparent political influence.”

And they accuse Brown, Townsend, Butler, Breed and Cohen of being “implicated in dramatic pay-to-play schemes including calling into doubt the efficiency and real purpose of One Stop Career Center in the Fillmore.” The filing does not explain what the schemes were that involved the center, which provides career development and employment services.

“A lot of what is out there is hearsay,” Breed said. “The reality is when you are in a position like this you are a target. ... You do your part, you stand your ground, you remain ethical and that’s what I have done throughout my entire career.”

Chow’s attorneys accuse the mayor of knowing that $10,000 in bribes was being broken up into $500 contributions — the legal limit — to be used to retire his 2011 campaign debt.

Legal experts said Chow’s team is taking an aggressive approach.

“The best defense is a good offense, and this is an example of what they are trying to do here, which is put the prosecution and all the other political officials on the defensive,” said Laurie Levenson, a former federal prosecutor and law professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. “What (Chow) wants to say is, if he’s going down, at least the reputations of many other people will as well.”

An uphill battle

But Levenson and other legal observers said Chow will have an uphill battle proving that prosecutors are targeting him.

“Ninety-nine percent of those motions fail,” she said. “Prosecutors are not required to prosecute everyone involved.”

Chow’s attorneys claim he was picked out because of his association with the Chinese Free Masons, his “outspoken and open dialogue relating to past criminal activity and ties, and his increasing legitimate political influence.” They also accuse U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag of failing to prosecute the officials because they were politically connected and because of the “perceived negative sociopolitical consequences” of going after them.

Rory Little, a former U.S. attorney and professor at UC Hastings College of the Law, said Chow may be right that other people engaged in less-than-forthright behavior. But he said that doesn’t change Chow’s culpability.

“None of what I have seen has anything to do with whether Raymond Chow is guilty or not guilty of the charges. The idea that there are a lot of other fish in the sea and the government only hauled in one doesn’t change the fact that one is on the hook,” Little said.

Uncertain fallout

Even so, it remains to be seen what the political fallout from Chow’s allegations will be.

“You are going to see folks try and make hay of this,” said political consultant David Latterman. “But you have to be really careful because there is nothing there yet. Anybody can say anyone is corrupt.”

The allegations could also result in a backlash against the FBI, Latterman said, because nearly all of the people targeted in the investigation are African American and Asian. “They are going after Chinese politicians. They are going after black politicians. There might be something wrong with this picture.”

[GeneChing]

Actually I read the Merc this morning, not the Chron. But this was front page there too.




Veteran prosecutor put on leave in ‘Shrimp Boy’ attorneys’ claims (http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Veteran-Alameda-County-prosecutor-placed-on-leave-6430093.php)
By Henry K. Lee Updated 6:15 pm, Thursday, August 6, 2015

http://ww1.hdnux.com/photos/40/11/17/8426476/5/920x920.jpg
Alameda County prosecutor Sharmin Bock Photo: Handout Photo
Photo: Handout Photo

A veteran Alameda County prosecutor who is an expert on human trafficking was placed on leave after defense attorneys in a high-profile San Francisco racketeering case alleged she had taken steps to launder campaign contributions with disgraced former state Sen. Leland Yee.

Sharmin Bock, a prosecutor for nearly three decades who most recently worked in the consumer, environmental and worker protection division — and who ran unsuccessfully to be San Francisco’s district attorney in 2011 — was placed on paid leave, said Sam Singer, a public relations consultant speaking on her behalf.

Singer said Bock would be exonerated of any wrongdoing and blasted the claims by attorneys for alleged San Francisco Chinatown gang leader Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow as “reckless and defamatory.” He said Bock would “cooperate with any review of the records and assist in any investigation.”

Singer said the allegations against Bock “are demonstrably false, and they are designed to misdirect attention from the serious allegations by federal prosecutors that are facing Mr. Chow. We know this won’t succeed. There is not a single fact that they presented nor is there a single law that they presented that has any bearing in reality.”

Bock, 53, was named in an explosive court filing by the defense attorneys. They said Bock was given an “unexplainable pass” after allegedly being heard repeatedly on federal wiretaps “conspiring with Leland Yee to exchange donations to defeat campaign finance limits while she was running for district attorney” in San Francisco.

“She remains unindicted and, in fact, she is still a prosecutor,” wrote Chow’s attorneys, Curtis Briggs, J. Tony Serra and Greg Bentley.

Chow’s attorneys also accused San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee of engaging in pay-to-play politics. Lee has similarly brushed off the accusations, which were contained in documents filed Tuesday claiming federal prosecutors selectively targeted Chow as FBI agents broadly investigated corruption by politicians and other local leaders.

Bock did not respond to a request for comment Thursday.

Rebecca Richardson, a spokeswoman for Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley, said Thursday, “By law, we cannot and do not comment on personnel matters.”

[hskwarrior]

tHE PLOT THICKENS......LMAO

[hskwarrior]

U.S. judge declines to seal allegedly confidential documents filed by Raymond Chow
August 20, 2015 By Bay City News Service

A federal judge in San Francisco Aug. 7 turned down a prosecution request to seal documents in which racketeering defendant Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow disclosed excerpts of FBI wiretap applications.

U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer said it would be futile to seal the documents filed by Chow on Aug. 4 because they have now been made public online and elsewhere.

“These documents are available on the Internet and have been widely publicized. The court will not engage in a futile act,” Breyer wrote in a two-page order. But the judge said he “will address the propriety of defendant Chow’s having publicly filed” the documents at the conclusion of the racketeering and organized crime case.

Breyer also ordered that any future filings by any parties in the case that contain information from wiretap applications and orders “shall be filed under seal and may be disclosed only upon a finding of good cause by this court.”

Chow, 55, the leader of the Chee Kung Tong fraternal association in San Francisco’s Chinatown, is charged with racketeering conspiracy, trafficking in stolen liquor and contraband cigarettes and money laundering. He and seven co-defendants are due to go on trial in Breyer’s court on Oct. 19.

His lawyers filed the excerpts of wiretap applications by unidentified FBI agents to support Chow’s motion for dismissal of the charges on the ground that he was selectively prosecuted. Chow claims that federal agents and prosecutors unfairly targeted him while failing to pursue probes of public officials, including San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee and Alameda County Assistant District Attorney Sharmin Bock, whose names surfaced in wiretaps and recordings.

Lee, Bock and others named in Chow’s brief have denied engaging in any illegal actions. Chow asked for either dismissal of the charges or the right to seek further evidence on his claim of selective prosecution. Breyer is scheduled to hear arguments on the request on Aug. 27.

Federal prosecutors, in a motion for sealing submitted to Breyer late Aug. 4, contended Chow’s filing violated a protective order issued by Breyer last year and a federal law that requires a judge’s permission for release of information from wiretap applications.

[hskwarrior]

http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Lawyer-Feds-spent-lavishly-wining-and-dining-6467880.php

[mickey]

Greetings,

This whole thing is falling the fuk apart. The problem is that this may only be the first wave of attacks against Chow.

mickey

[GeneChing]

That's a tough argument because if the judge allowed it, it would really open up Pandora's box.


Motion Denied: Court Drama Continues in ‘Shrimp Boy’ Case (http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/08/27/motion-denied-court-drama-continues-in-shrimp-boy-case)

http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2015/08/RS16502_IMG_2555.JPG-alt_323-1920x1260.jpg
Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow's defense attorneys Tony Serra, left, and Curtis Briggs unsuccessfully argued Aug. 27 that their client was selectively prosecuted for racketeering charges while alleged crimes by prominent San Francisco politicians, including Mayor Ed Lee, were ignored. (Alex Emslie/KQED)

By Alex Emslie
August 27, 2015

U.S. District Court Judge Charles Breyer on Thursday denied a motion by defense attorneys for Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow that sought to determine why federal authorities pursued a multiyear investigation of their client but seemed to turn a blind eye to crimes they allege were committed by prominent San Francisco politicians, including Mayor Ed Lee.

Chow’s defense attorneys, Tony Serra and Curtis Briggs, asked the court to dismiss charges against Chow on the grounds their client was selectively prosecuted and, alternatively, for Breyer to force federal prosecutors and the FBI to turn over memos that could indicate why Lee “suddenly vanished” from the investigation.

“I see no evidence whatsoever of any crime or wrongdoing by the mayor,” Breyer told Briggs and Serra from the bench.

Thursday’s hearing followed Chow’s explosive Aug. 4 motion that included transcripts from FBI phone taps, body-worn wire recordings and other notes that appear to implicate several political players in San Francisco.

The connection to Lee comes from recorded statements from former Human Rights Commissioner Nazly Mohajer and commission staffer Zula Jones. According to FBI evidence cited and attached to the Aug. 4 filing, Jones called an undercover FBI agent on April 17, 2012. She initially told the agent that an individual could not donate more than $500. Then, from the filing:

At this point, JONES realized she was speaking to UCE [undercover employee] 4773, said she called the wrong person back and said “Oh my god, I’m thinking you’re someone from San Jose …. Sorry I had a hectic day today, I really apologize.” She then switched the subject, “Ed knows that you gave the 10,000 … he knows that … he knows that you will give another 10,000. He also knows that we had to break the 10,000 up.”

In court Thursday, Briggs said Lee himself was also recorded on a tapped phone thanking an undercover FBI agent for the illegal donation.

“Agent 4773 actually spoke to Ed Lee on the phone in the context of an illegal donation,” Briggs said.

Breyer pressed Briggs on what the “context of an illegal donation” means.

“A bribe,” Briggs said. But when Breyer pressed further, Briggs couldn’t produce evidence directly linking Lee to criminal wrongdoing.

And the transcript of that alleged conversation was not included in Chow’s original motion. Breyer has since ruled that all future references to “wiretap applications and orders, and the documents incorporated therein, shall be filed under seal and may be disclosed only upon a finding of good cause by this Court.”

He said Thursday that the case includes some 100,000 pages of transcripts from FBI wires.

“There’s nothing in the record that demonstrates that the mayor was involved in the contributions, or splitting it up, or that there was any impermissible quid pro quo,” Breyer said.

Briggs said he inadvertently omitted the transcript of Lee’s alleged taped conversation with the agent from the original motion, but he described it to reporters after Thursday’s hearing.

“[Jones] said, here, somebody wants to talk to you, and the FBI says it was Ed Lee got on the phone, said thank you so much for your support. I’m looking forward to working with you or something to that effect,” Briggs said. “Zula arranged a meeting a couple weeks later. Ed Lee sat down at that meeting with three undercover agents from the FBI and very carefully talked about potentially favorable contracts in the city … and then he kind of disappears from the investigation.”

The mayor’s office did not respond to a request for comment, but a spokesman for Lee’s re-election campaign did respond.

“Are you kidding me???” Ed Lee for Mayor 2015 Communications Director P.J. Johnston wrote in an emailed response. “The judge vindicated the Mayor, and you’re pursuing more outrageous accusations by Shrimp Boy … Shrimp Boy’s legal strategy was to smear as many other people as he could. The strategy failed. It’s incumbent upon the media to pay at least half as much attention to the exoneration as they paid to the scurrilous accusations.”

San Francisco’s Ethics Commission, district attorney and city attorney have launched investigations into the alleged improper campaign donations.

Chow’s defense team said it didn’t expect the case to be dismissed but had hoped the court would force the government to reveal how the decision was made to stop investigating Lee. With that discovery, the lawyers argued, they could likely make a better case that Chow was unfairly targeted while federal prosecutors turned a blind eye to Lee.

“We’re in a Catch-22 unless the court intervenes,” Serra told Breyer.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Susan Badger argued the legal burden is on the defense to provide evidence of a selective prosecution, which they failed to do in this case. She said in court that the issue goes to the heart of government separation of powers.

“The executive makes the decision who and what to prosecute, whether there is sufficient evidence,” she said. “The courts require a rigorous standard in order to allow the judicial branch to start scrutinizing prosecutorial discretion.”

Breyer suggested to the defense that Lee and others may not have been prosecuted because the evidence wasn’t there.

“No, too big to fall,” Serra responded. “Too big to fall.”

“There’s nothing there, Mr. Serra,” Breyer said.

Serra said allegations brought up in the selective prosecution motion will be central to the defense’s case when Chow’s jury trial begins.

“They could have got other political people easy as pie,” Serra said after court. “They chose not to, and this motion here, we wanted to find out really, why didn’t you? Why didn’t you go to the grand jury on the mayor? Why didn’t you further the investigation? … You’re going to find that they didn’t want to touch this very strong political core in San Francisco.

“They wanted to get our client Shrimp Boy. They were blind to everything else. So that’s going to help us with a jury.”

[hskwarrior]

That's a tough argument because if the judge allowed it, it would really open up Pandora's box.


it ain't over till the fat lady sings. She's not even in the neighborhood yet.

[hskwarrior]

9569

9570

[GeneChing]

The Chron ran an editorial of sorts on this today by their community watchdogs, Matier & Ross. Here's the beginning of the article (you must be a subscriber to get it all).


MATIER AND ROSS

New details on FBI’s lavish spending in ‘Shrimp Boy’ case (http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/matier-ross/article/FBI-agents-targets-in-Chow-case-ate-and-drank-6491809.php)
By Matier & Ross September 8, 2015 Updated: September 8, 2015 5:23pm

http://ww4.hdnux.com/photos/27/22/45/6105435/9/920x1240.jpg
Photo: Associated Press In this photo taken March 16, 2011, Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow, second from right, poses with inducted several consultants, including Keith Jackson, left, a former San Francisco school board member at the Chee Kung Tong spring banquet in San Francisco. According to Chow's attorneys, the man posing between Jackson and Chow is the undercover FBI agent known as "Dave." (AP Photo/Sing Tao Daily)

We don’t know how the criminal case against Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow will turn out, but do know one thing: Both the FBI undercover agents and their targets had one heck of a good time during the probe, especially the lead undercover agent known in court papers only as “Dave.”

[GeneChing]

This does not bode well for Chow.



Raymond ‘Shrimp Boy’ Chow co-defendants unexpectedly plead guilty (http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Raymond-Shrimp-Boy-Chow-co-defendants-6494040.php)
By Bob Egelko Updated 6:27 pm, Wednesday, September 9, 2015

http://ww2.hdnux.com/photos/27/32/27/6137309/29/920x920.jpg
Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow poses for a portrait in San Francisco in July 2007. Photo: Jen Siska, Associated Press

What began last year as a sprawling investigation into political corruption, gun-running and murder plots in San Francisco narrowed its focus Wednesday to a single defendant: Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow, the onetime Chinatown gang leader, later an ex-con lauded for his redeeming community work, and finally the leader of a community organization he allegedly converted to a criminal enterprise.

Six of Chow’s co-defendants pleaded guilty in federal court to money laundering and trafficking in stolen goods, catching prosecutors by surprise and raising question marks about the next scheduled phase of the case, a Nov. 2 trial of all six, plus Chow and another defendant, on charges of racketeering.

Those charges became the centerpiece of the case after the other headline defendant, former state Sen. Leland Yee, pleaded guilty in July to a separate racketeering count and admitted taking bribes from undercover agents.

While Chow’s seven co-defendants are still charged with racketeering, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer said he would consider a request to postpone the co-defendants’ trial on Tuesday and questioned the need for the charges, in view of the sentences of five to 20 years that their guilty pleas carry.

“Does it make any sense to place (them) on trial on other charges?” Breyer asked Assistant U.S. Attorney William Franzen. Franzen indicated that prosecutors would probably drop the remaining charges against at least some of the defendants after consulting with the Justice Department.

That would leave the spotlight on Chow, who faces a much longer sentence if convicted and is being held without bail. Curtis Briggs, one of his lawyers, cast Wednesday’s guilty pleas as a victory.

“The government’s racketeering theory just lost all credibility,” Briggs told reporters, noting that most of the defendants, in their admissions of guilt, had not mentioned any actions by Chow, the alleged leader of the criminal enterprise.

But one defendant, George Nieh, 42, said in his guilty plea that he had conspired with Chow in sales of stolen liquor and stolen cigarettes to undercover agents. That admission seems to contradict Chow’s claim that he steadfastly resisted agents’ pressure to approve criminal activity. Nieh also pleaded guilty to illegal sales of guns and marijuana and to 130 counts of money laundering.

Another defense lawyer, Dennis Riordan, told Breyer that the charges admitted by his client, Leslie Yun — money laundering and trafficking with undercover agents in marijuana and stolen cigarettes — did not implicate Chow or any other defendant.

“She has not agreed that she conspired with Mr. Chow,” Riordan said. Franzen later observed to the judge that some defendants were “selective” in implicating others in their guilty pleas, which had not been negotiated with the prosecutors.

Defense lawyers didn’t say what prompted their clients to plead guilty. As recently as Tuesday, Riordan filed papers with Breyer seeking the identity of the prosecution’s chief undercover agent in the case, and accusing the agent of dishonest and biased statements that undercut his credibility.

It was “like waking up on Christmas morning with a true surprise,“ Franzen told Breyer, referring to the unexpected pleas.

In addition to Nieh and Yun, 47, others entering guilty pleas were Yun’s husband, James Pau, 66; Kevin Siu, 32; Alan Chiu, 52; and Andy Li, 46.

Four other defendants in the case pleaded guilty in July, including Yee.

Sixteen more defendants charged in the undercover investigation are awaiting trial.

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @egelko

[hskwarrior]

6 co-defendants plead guilty This does not bode well for Chow.

The lawyers seem to think it's a blessing. Plus, five of the 6 did not connect Raymond to their crimes. the one that did, IDK about that.

The fat lady is not even in the building. not even on the block yet.

[hskwarrior]

9591
..................................

[GeneChing]

What say you to this latest development, HSK? It's like they're really reaching now...:rolleyes:



Prosecutors say they can link ‘Shrimp Boy’ Chow to 2006 murder (http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Prosecutors-say-they-can-link-Shrimp-Boy-6535566.php)
By Bob Egelko Updated 7:19 pm, Monday, September 28, 2015

http://ww4.hdnux.com/photos/41/15/71/8707703/8/920x920.jpg
Allen Leung, was shot to death by a masked gunman in the office of a business Leung owned. No one has ever been charged with the murder. Photo: Courtesy Of The Leung Family
Photo: Courtesy Of The Leung Family

A federal prosecutor said Monday that the government has evidence that Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow, awaiting trial on charges of running a Chinatown community organization as a criminal racketeering enterprise, arranged the murder of the organization’s previous leader in 2006 and tried to solicit a second murder.

They have not charged him with murder, however, and only want to use his alleged involvement in the killings as evidence in the racketeering case.

At a U.S. District Court hearing in San Francisco on issues related to the scheduled Nov. 2 trial, Assistant U.S. Attorney William Frenzen noted that Chow became leader of the Ghee Kung Tong six months after his predecessor, Allen Leung, was shot to death by a masked gunman in the office of a business Leung owned. No one has ever been charged with the murder.

“We have been able to link (Chow) to soliciting that murder,” Frenzen told U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer. The prosecutor also said there was evidence that Chow tried to recruit someone to kill a member of the Hop Sing Tong, a San Francisco street gang, who was later slain, along with his wife, in Mendocino County. Those killings also remain unsolved.

Chow, who was released from prison after a previous racketeering sentence in 2003, is accused of operating the long-established Ghee Kung Tong as a gang that ran drugs and guns and committed violent crimes. Frenzen did not describe the evidence connecting Chow to the homicides but argued that prosecutors should be able to introduce evidence of the killings to show how Chow ran the organization.

“Mr. Chow did not take over the (tong) because of his business acumen,” Frenzen told the judge. “This was how he asserted power.”

In response, defense lawyer Curtis Briggs said the prosecution should have to put up or shut up.

“If there is a murder being charged, let’s charge it,” Briggs told Breyer, who did not immediately rule on the admissibility of the homicide evidence. Later, Briggs told reporters that Frenzen’s assertion was “a farce. ... They don’t have any evidence.”

When Breyer told Frenzen to file arguments about Chow’s alleged involvement in the murders under seal, to avoid influencing potential jurors, Briggs, after consulting with Chow, said no sealing was necessary. “We have nothing to hide,” the attorney told Breyer, who agreed to a public filing.

Abraham Simmons, spokesman for U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag’s office, declined to comment on whether Chow would be charged with murder.

Leung, 56, was both a leader in the secretive world of Chinese community “brotherhoods,” or tongs, and a public figure who ran an import-export business and was appointed to city economic task forces by Mayors Willie Brown and Gavin Newsom. He also served as a representative of Taiwan’s government in San Francisco.

Chow attended his funeral.

Chow was one of more than two dozen defendants indicted last year after a five-year undercover federal investigation into alleged crime and corruption in Chinatown and related political circles. The probe led to the guilty plea in July of former state Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, who admitted taking bribes from undercover agents posing as campaign contributors in exchange for promises of political favors and illegal gun-smuggling.

Chow’s racketeering trial is scheduled to last up to 10 weeks. Other defendants will be tried later.

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @egelko

[hskwarrior]

I agree. they are reaching. it's like a game of tag. Raymond reported on the mayor, now it seems like they're trying to have a "one up" on him. It's funny that they are not actually charging him with any murder, but trying to use it to support their BS claims that he is running a criminal enterprise. in the end, this is all going to make one HELLUVA movie.

[hskwarrior]

9638..........................

[GeneChing]

I didn't catch up on the Chron until yesterday eve. :rolleyes:


Prosecutor: ‘Shrimp Boy’ Chow to face murder solicitation charges (http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Prosecutor-Shrimp-Boy-Chow-to-face-murder-6569049.php)
By Bob Egelko Updated 8:18 pm, Tuesday, October 13, 2015

http://ww2.hdnux.com/photos/27/17/21/6091897/11/920x920.jpg
Raymond Chow

A federal prosecutor said Tuesday the government will charge Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow, leader of a Chinatown community organization, with soliciting the murders of the organization’s former leader and another man.

Chow, 55, already charged with running the Ghee Kung Tong organization as a criminal racketeering enterprise and held without bail, will face the additional charges in a new grand jury indictment on Thursday, Assistant U.S. Attorney William Frenzen said at a court hearing.

He did not specify the charges. But in a court filing Monday evening, prosecutors said they would be “linking Chow to soliciting” the 2006 murder of Allen Leung, former head of the Ghee Kung Tong, and the 2013 slaying of Jim Tat Kong, a member of the Hop Sing Tong, a San Francisco street gang. No one has been charged with the murders.

The prosecutor’s filing disclosed that two of Chow’s former co-defendants in the case, Kongphet Chanthavong and Andy Li, would testify for the prosecution and implicate Chow in the alleged murder plots. Both also have been charged with racketeering but have pleaded guilty to lesser charges.

Prosecutors said Chanthavong would testify that Chow, upset about an unpaid debt, told him and two other men outside an Oakland bar that “he wanted them to take care of a person,” who turned out to be Leung. A month later, Leung, 56, was shot to death by a masked gunman in the office of a San Francisco import-export business he owned.

Li will testify that Chow asked him on an unspecified date to find someone to kill Kong, after the two had a falling-out, and that Li agreed to do it, prosecutors said in the court filing. They said Li would also describe a meeting several months later when he asked Chow when and how Kong should be killed, and Chow told him not to worry about it because “it was handled.”

Kong and his wife were found shot to death in Mendocino County in October 2013.

Lawyer isn’t worried

Soliciting murder in the course of racketeering is punishable by up to life in prison. Curtis Briggs, a lawyer for Chow, told reporters he wasn’t worried.

“We can’t be in a better position,” Briggs said after Tuesday’s hearing. He said Chanthavong and Li had shared a jail cell after their arrests and had “plenty of time to coordinate their stories.” Briggs also said wiretap evidence released by the prosecution shows that a federal undercover agent asked Li to kill Kong, but Chow told him not to.

Chow spoke up after U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer told Briggs the new indictment would entitle the defense to a two-week postponement of Chow’s trial, now scheduled to start Nov. 2. Briggs said he wanted to keep the current schedule and Chow, who has been in jail since charges were first filed in April 2014, agreed.

“I’ve been waiting for this trial for a long time, and I don’t want to waste any more time,” the defendant told Breyer.

Chow, who was released from prison after a previous racketeering conviction in 2003, is accused of operating the long-established Ghee Kung Tong as a gang that ran drugs and guns and committed violent crimes. Frenzen said at a Sept. 28 hearing that the prosecution planned to introduce evidence of Chow’s involvement in the two slayings and spelled out some of that evidence in Monday’s filing.

Another witness to testify

Besides Chanthavong’s testimony implicating Chow in Leung’s slaying, the prosecution said, another man loyal to Chow, now serving a prison sentence for a different homicide, will testify that Chow and one of his henchmen met with two men behind closed doors a day or two before Leung was killed. The witness will also say that he drove the two men to Leung’s office the night of the slaying, drove them away afterward, and watched them break their guns into pieces and toss them into the bay, prosecutors said.

Chow was one of more than two dozen defendants indicted last year after a five-year undercover investigation into alleged crime and corruption that started in Chinatown and spread into political circles. The probe led to the guilty plea in July of former state Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, who admitted taking bribes from undercover agents posing as campaign contributors in exchange for promises of political favors and illegal gun-smuggling.

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @egelko

[hskwarrior]

As prosecutors prepared to charge Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow with arranging the murder of his predecessor as leader of a Chinatown brotherhood, a federal judge refused a prosecution request Thursday to postpone Chow’s trial next month on accusations that he ran the organization as a racketeering enterprise.

U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer said the murder count — a potential death penalty charge — could be tried separately later.

Chow, 55, is scheduled to go on trial Nov. 2 on charges of turning the Ghee Kung Tong, an established community organization he has headed since 2006, into a violent criminal enterprise that trafficked in guns, drugs and stolen goods. The charges resulted from a five-year undercover investigation that led to the guilty plea of former state Sen. Leland Yee, a San Francisco Democrat, on charges of taking bribes from agents posing as campaign contributors.

Chow’s case took on a new dimension last week when federal prosecutors said evidence from two co-defendants, who have pleaded guilty to lesser charges, implicated him in soliciting two murders: the February 2006 killing of the Ghee Kung Tong’s then-chief, Allen Leung, and the October 2013 fatal shooting of Jim Tat Kong, a San Francisco gang member.

On Wednesday, prosecutors said the new grand jury indictment would charge Chow with arranging Leung’s murder as part of a racketeering enterprise, a charge punishable by death or life in prison. Assistant U.S. Attorney William Frentzen said prosecutors do not intend to seek a death sentence against Chow — but, under federal regulations, must still seek approval from Attorney General Loretta Lynch, who personally reviews all capital charges sought by federal prosecutors.

The review could be completed in a month or two, Frentzen said Thursday at a hearing where he asked Breyer to postpone Chow’s trial. But Breyer — who took part by phone from Washington, D.C., where he was attending a meeting of the U.S. Sentencing Commission — said such procedures often take many months, in his experience. He said a delay would violate the speedy-trial rights of Chow, who has been held without bail since his arrest in April 2014 and who opposes a postponement.

Breyer said Chow’s trial would start as scheduled, with jury selection next week and opening statements Nov. 2. Frentzen said prosecutors may add a non-capital charge of conspiring to arrange Leung’s murder. But the judge said the murder charge itself would have to be tried separately.

If Chow is acquitted of racketeering at his first trial, however, his lawyers plan to argue that the constitutional ban on double jeopardy would prohibit a new trial on charges of soliciting Leung’s murder in the course of racketeering.

Frentzen did not mention his previous allegations linking Chow to Kong’s death or explain why prosecutors apparently had decided not to charge him with soliciting that murder. Defense lawyer Curtis Briggs said during the hearing that the prosecution’s own evidence “completely exonerated” Chow from any role in that killing.

http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Shrimp-Boy-Chow-to-be-tried-separately-for-6573096.php

[GeneChing]

Several articles on the news feed today, mostly reiterating this and the story above that hsk posted.


‘Shrimp Boy’ trial to start Nov. 2, federal request for continuance denied (http://www.sfexaminer.com/shrimp-boy-trial-to-start-nov-2-federal-request-for-continuance-denied/)

http://www.sfexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/f.RaymondChowFixed.jpg
Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow, a self-described Chinatown gangster, claims he has been targeted by the U.S. Attorney's Office and is the victim of "selective prosecution." (Jen Siska/Special to S.F. Examiner)
By Jonah Owen Lamb on October 15, 2015 2:40 pm

Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow’s federal racketeering trial will begin in November as planned, despite an effort by prosecutors to push that date back by months after announcing new last-minute charges.

Thursday a federal judge denied a request for continuance by prosecutors who said they need several months for their bosses to review capital charges in a pending superseding indictment against Chow.

U.S. District Court Judge Charles Breyer said via teleconference (he was in Washington D.C.) that any further delay in the case would impact Chow’s right to a speedy trial and impact his ability to have the lawyer of his choosing.

The “defendant’s right to a speedy trial and counsel of his choosing would be severely impacted by a continuance of the case,” said Breyer.

The continuance was requested by U.S. Attorney William Frentzen after his office said they plan to file new charges against Chow, which will include soliciting murder charges in connection to the killing of Chinatown businessman Allen Leung in 2006.

Frentzen said he planned to connect the soliciting murder charge to Chow’s alleged criminal enterprises, which would mean the charge could be death penalty eligible. But to indict someone with a capital offense he said he needs the Department of Justice to review the charge. That could take two to three months, he added.

Breyer, who also ruled that any new capital eligible charges will be severed from the case, said he has never seen the DOJ make a call on such cases in that time frame. Instead it usually takes about a year, he said.

The case against Chow had previously only alleged he headed an organized crime group, the fraternal Chinatown organization Ghee Kung Tong.

Those charges stemmed from a year-long federal investigation into the Chinatown underworld and political corruption in San Francisco.

In March 2014, law enforcement raids across the Bay Area detained more than 20 people, including former state Sen. Leland Yee, former school board member Keith Jackson and Chow.

The arrests stemmed from a federal indictment alleging, among other things, that Chow headed an organized gang outfit in Chinatown and that Yee and Jackson committed a series of crimes to further Yee’s political ambitions. Yee and Jackson have since pleaded guilty to racketeering and other charges.

Chow’s arrest and the subsequent case have also pulled in a bevy of Bay Area politicians, including Mayor Ed Lee, who were caught up in the Federal Bureau of Investigator’s inquiry into local political corruption.

[GeneChing]

We'll pick this up in 3 weeks...unless there are more shenanigans between then and now. :o


‘Shrimp Boy’ trial postponed to Nov. 9 (http://www.sfexaminer.com/shrimp-boy-trial-postponed-to-nov-9/)
By Bay City News on October 19, 2015 12:48 pm

The racketeering and murder solicitation trial of Chinatown association leader Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow was postponed in federal court in San Francisco on Monday until Nov. 9.

The delay moves the trial one week past its previous start date of Nov. 2 for opening statements and the beginning of testimony.

U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer ordered the postponement because Chow’s lead lawyer, veteran criminal defense attorney Tony Serra, is still in an unrelated murder trial in Yolo County Superior Court and will not be available for jury selection in Chow’s case this week.

Jury selection Chow’s trial will now take place on Nov. 2 and 3. The trial is expected to last about two months.

Chow, 55, is the dragonhead or leader of the Chee Kung Tong fraternal association in Chinatown. He is charged with racketeering conspiracy, conspiring to solicit the murder of a former associate in 2013, conspiring to transport and receive stolen goods and dozens of counts of money laundering.

Chow is also charged with an additional count of murder in aid of racketeering for allegedly causing the gunfire slaying in 2006 of Allen Leung, Chow’s predecessor as Chee Kung Tong leader.

But that charge, which could carry a potential death penalty upon conviction, may be tried in a later trial and not in the November proceeding.

Breyer said last week he will order a separate, later trial on the murder charge if U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch decides that prosecutors should seek a death penalty. He said Monday the murder charge will be included in the upcoming trial only if Lynch decides not to seek a death penalty and makes that decision before Nov. 2.

A possible death penalty would affect jury selection because it would be necessary to choose jurors willing to vote for capital punishment.

Also Monday, Breyer declined to reconsider a previous ruling in which he said prosecutors could keep secret the identities of undercover FBI agents who investigated the case. The judge said he might change his mind during the trial, depending how the evidence unfolds.

Chow was one of 29 people indicted last year in a wide-ranging indictment that included both organized-crime charges against most defendants and political corruption charges against former state Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco/San Mateo.

Yee and 10 other defendants have pleaded guilty to various charges. Two of those defendants are former associates of Chow’s who are expected to testify against him on the murder-related charges, according to a recent prosecution filing.

[GeneChing]

BREAKING: Prosecutors will not seek death penalty in ‘Shrimp Boy’ trial (http://www.sfexaminer.com/breaking-prosecutors-will-not-seek-death-penalty-in-shrimp-boy-trial/)

http://www.sfexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/CHOW-e1441173812948.jpg
Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow has been indicted by a federal grand jury in San Francisco on new charges of participating in two murders in 2006 and 2013. (Jen Siska/Special to S.F. Examiner)
By Associated Press and Jonah Owen Lamb on October 26, 2015 5:54 pm

Federal prosecutors say they will not seek the death penalty against alleged Chinatown gangster Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office indicated in a court filing on Monday that it won’t seek the death penalty against Chow even though it had argued forcefully in court to the contrary.

Chow, who has pleaded not guilty, was already facing racketeering and money laundering charges when prosecutors earlier this month charged him with murder in aid of racketeering, which carries a potential sentence of death.

Chow is accused of arranging the 2006 shooting death of Allen Leung, who preceded Chow as leader of the Chinese fraternal group Ghee Kung Tong.

U.S. District Court Judge Charles Breyer severed the charges against Chow that had possible capital punishment after prosecutors made their failed attempt to include those charges in the racketeering case against Chow.

The Killing

Chow became the Dragonhead of the Ghee Kung Tong after Leung was killed.

But before Leung’s death, Chow had reportedly asked another fraternal organization, the Hop Sing Tong — of which Leung was a member — for $120,000 for a youth group.

The request was denied, then someone fired shots into the Hop Sing Tong’s front door.

Then Leung, who aided the FBI case looking into the shooting, was killed.

Chow alone wore white at Leung’s funeral, which some thought was a sign of disrespect. His attorneys said otherwise.

The defense also argues an FBI informant provided information about Leung’s killing and helped exonerate Chow. Despite this “the FBI has never missed an opportunity to try to paint Chow guilty for this murder,” Chow’s attorneys said in a filing.

They argue that evidence for Leung’s death points to another man.

“All evidence pointed at the now deceased Jim Tat Kong,” noted a recent defense filing. “Jim Tat Kong was attempting to take control of the Hop Sing Tong.”

Kong was found dead along with his wife Oct. 17, 2013, in Fort Bragg, in Mendocino County.

The wearing white = disrespect thing is a cultural misinterpretation.

[hskwarrior]

Wearing white at a funeral is a traditional Chinese cultural thing. Not a sign of disrespect. I was there at that funeral

[GeneChing]

Not to make light of this situation, but clearly those observers that thought wearing white at a funeral have never seen Bruce at his master's funeral in Fist of Fury.

http://www.fareastfilms.com/cmsAdmin/uploads/fist_of_fury3.jpg

[hskwarrior]

That's funny.

Nah, I wasn't part of Allen's family at that time but i knew him and was most likely the only white guy let in to pay respects before the funeral. I was at his funeral too. He's buried close to where I live.

@ 2:19 you can see me walking and my sifu in front of me. (there is a guy in between us).


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBbXG3J-Yp0

[hskwarrior]

Thanks Gene, I hope this helps people to see the truth behind it

9645

[hskwarrior]

http://ahdu88.blogspot.com/2006/04/san-francisco-terror-in-china.html

President Bush calls China a "strategic partner" in the war on terror, but some Chinese Americans are accusing the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) of bringing its own terror campaign to the USA. They believe the CCP ordered the murder of Allen Ngai Leung, 56, an admired community leader in San Francisco. The day after Leung's murder, an anonymous caller to the worldwide Sound of Hope radio said, "You want to know who killed Allen Leung? Call Chinese Consulate and Chinese Chamber of Commerce." And then hung up.

Leung's murder "is spreading terror … [to] warn [those who] … dare to oppose the CCP," the Epoch Times reported on March 8. "We have now seen the long arm of the Communist regime infiltrate the United States itself.... It is …a frightening escalation of the Communists' plans to silence and intimidate the overseas Chinese people, in San Francisco, here, and around the world."

[hskwarrior]

its going down now

9650

[hskwarrior]

Very Interesting


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKVPX6aglvE

[hskwarrior]

http://www.courthousenews.com/2015/11/09/shrimp-boy-chow-trial-opener-offers-dueling-portraits.htm

[hskwarrior]

The second day of Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow’s federal criminal trial saw testimony from the FBI agent who monitored him after his release from prison in 2003 and from an associate of the alleged Chinatown gang leader who testified he helped plan a murder that Chow is accused of ordering.

Joe “Fat Joe” Chanthavong said he surveilled Allen Leung’s business for weeks before the former tong leader was shot to death in February 2006.

He testified he was brought into the alleged gang hit sometime in mid-2005, when he met with Raymond Chow, Raymond “Skinny Ray” Lei, and another man he only knew by his first name, Kevin.

At first, Chanthavong said, he wasn’t sure what kind of job he was being brought into — he doesn’t speak Chinese. But its nature became clear after Chow went back into the bar in Oakland near where the meeting took place.

“We start talking and start brainstorming and that’s when I learn that someone was going to get taken out,” he said.

He then started driving by 603 Jackson St. in San Francisco’s Chinatown — where Leung would eventually be shot to death on Feb. 27, 2006. But when he got the call from “Kevin” to do the shooting, Chanthavong said he got cold feet.

“I didn’t want to be a part of it,” he said. “I’m not a killer. I’m a drug dealer.”

He said a few weeks after he walked away from the job, he read Allen Leung’s name in the newspaper.

“I had no reaction,” he said. “I knew it was going to happen, so it wasn’t a surprise.”

Federal prosecutor Waqar Hasib asked him if he ever asked Raymond Chow about the killing after it happened.

“No,” he answered. “It’s something you don’t talk about. I mean, the guy was murdered. I didn’t ask. That’s the thing — you don’t ask questions. Once it’s done, it’s done.”

Chanthavong is one of Chow’s nearly two dozen co-defendants. He said he pleaded guilty to racketeering, marijuana and cocaine distribution, narcotics manufacturing, being a felon in possession of a firearm and selling firearms without a license — at least three he sold to an undercover FBI agent.

Hasib asked him what he hoped to get in exchange for his testimony.

“I get a break out of it,” Chanthavong answered, “a lesser sentence.”

According to FBI Special Agent William Wu, who was cross-examined Tuesday, Chow began plans to take out Allen Leung in late 2003.

Chow’s attorney, Curtis Briggs, peppered Wu with questions about why the bureau in 2004 withdrew support for Chow’s release from immigration custody. Chow was awaiting a visa in exchange for testifying against another member of “Jackson Street Boys,” a Chinatown gang, according to Wu.

The agent repeatedly described a “series of events,” which individually were uncorroborated, but taken together, the FBI could “no longer feel comfortable that we can monitor Mr. Chow.”

Leung got in touch with the FBI through the SFPD’s Gang Task Force in late 2003.

“Allen Leung told me that Raymond Chow came to remove him and somebody else,” he said, later clarifying Leung meant the head of another tong, “so he could take over and clean up Chinatown.”

Wu met with Leung three times in quick succession that November, the agent testified, and each time he said he was scared of Raymond Chow. Wu, Chow’s handling agent, asked Leung to wear a wire.

“Mr. Leung refused to wear the body wire because he was afraid if Mr. Chow found the wire, he would kill him,” Wu said, adding that Leung told him, as a gang member, he could not use law enforcement to set up another gang member.

“But he’s talking to you,” Briggs said. “He’s doing exactly what he said he swore not to do?”

Wu said that was true, and after Leung refused to wear the wire, there wasn’t much else the FBI could do.

Leung later told Wu, the agent testified, that an associate of Chow’s showed up with 40 gang members to intimidate the former dragon head. Then in February of 2005, Wu said, someone splattered red paint on every one of Chinatown’s tongs except for Hop Sing. Leung, the head of Hop Sing Tong, again contacted Wu and was frightened.

“Red paint signifies blood,” Wu said. “It’s the start of a gang war.”

Leung told Wu, according to the agent, that Hop Sing Tong was being set up.

Then a month later, two gunshots were fired at the front of Hop Sing Tong’s headquarters.

“That’s violence we do not and cannot tolerate,” Wu said.

Chow was never directly linked to any of the incidents and denied any involvement.

“You took every gang member’s word over his,” Briggs said.

Nevertheless, the FBI’s support for Chow’s monitored release from immigration custody was revoked, and Chow went back into custody for about a year, although the U.S. Attorney’s Office continued to advocate for his release.

“After Mr. Chow was turned back into custody, Chinatown was quiet for that entire year, until he was released again,” Wu said.

[hskwarrior]

http://www.sfexaminer.com/judge-orders-court-closed-to-public-in-shrimp-boy-trial-to-protect-identity-of-undercover-fbi-agents/

[hskwarrior]

http://www.sfexaminer.com/separate-federal-case-questions-killing-allegedly-ordered-by-shrimp-boy/

[GeneChing]

There's video with courtroom sketches if you follow the link.


FBI UNDERCOVER AGENT BECAME LIKE BROTHER TO 'SHRIMP BOY' (http://abc7news.com/politics/fbi-undercover-agent-became-like-brother-to-shrimp-boy/1090745/)
FBI undercover agent became like brother to Shrimp Boy
In the trial of Chinatown gangster Shrimp Boy the undercover agent said he became like a brother to the defendant.
KGO By Vic Lee
Wednesday, November 18, 2015 10:10PM

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- The government's lead witness in the trial of reputed Chinatown gangster Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow claims he became like a brother to the defendant during the undercover operation. Jurors heard secretly recorded conversations backing up that claim.

Chow was indicted for two murders and other crimes, including money laundering. Prosecutors questioned their star witness -- an FBI undercover agent who posed as a mafioso, using the alias Dave Jordan.

The prosecution played recorded conversations and wiretaps. The agent became like a brother to Chow, meeting him and his associates in expensive restaurants like Morton's steakhouse and in Chinatown.

VIDEO: Trial begins for former Chinatown gang member Raymond 'Shrimp Boy' Chow

This sketch shows Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow inside a San Francisco courtroom at the start of his trial November 9, 2015.

Jordan said Chow's driver George Nieh became his point man for money laundering and other criminal activities.

In one exchange, Nieh tells Jordan, "I'm ready to do business with you. I have Mr. Chow's blessing. Tell me what you want to do?"

The government maintains Chow directed the criminal activities of his associates, even though defense attorneys say he had no involvement. Jordan said he gave envelopes of cash to Chow and each time, he would politely decline before taking it.

Jordan: "His standard response was 'No, no, no.'"
Prosecutor: "Did he take the money?"
Jordan: "Yes, immediately."

Chow's attorney says his client thought Jordan was giving it to him out of respect.

Defense Attorney Curtis Briggs told ABC7 News, "He did take some money, but he didn't take any money for anything illegal."

Agent alias Dave Jordan is back on the stand on Thursday. The court will again protect his identity by closing the hearing to members of the public, who can still hear his testimony in the media room of the courthouse.

[hskwarrior]

I can't stop laughing when i read the line that the undercover agents "INFILTRATED" the Ghee Kung Tong when our doors were open to the public and there was nothing to hide. If he went through some long process of being vetted and eventually allowed into the club then maybe he infiltrated us. However, since i was present I can tell everyone that the FBI didn't infiltrate us. When they appeared into the picture, THEY came with all the CRIME and bull****, not GHEE KUNG TONG. We were busy doing good community things before they showed up.

FBI don't feel so highly about yourself when you didn't infiltrate ****! Its almost like you saying you infiltrated 7-11...whose always open 24-7.

[hskwarrior]

http://www.mercurynews.com/crime-courts/ci_29156274/shrimp-boy-chow-trial-fbi-agent-cross-examined

[hskwarrior]

I've been following the news constantly since court started. Nowhere in the whole trial so far did the prosecution offer up evidence that proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that Shrimp Boy was guilty.

http://www.sfexaminer.com/shrimp-boy-case-now-in-the-hands-of-jurors-as-attorney-conclude-closing-arguments/

[hskwarrior]

I still have your back dai goh......we'll be with you when you appeal too..

free shrimp boy chow!!!!!

[mickey]

Greetings,

What is Chinatown's response to all of this?

mickey

[GeneChing]

...going vintage (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?67701-Birth-of-the-Dragon&p=1289900#post1289900).

Sorry to hear this, hskwarrior. We have appreciated your candor on this forum throughout the trial.


Chow trial political fallout: Looking back at the ‘Shrimp Boy’ saga (http://www.sfexaminer.com/chow-trial-political-fallout-looking-back-at-the-shrimp-boy-saga/)

http://www.sfexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/CHOW-e1441173812948.jpg
Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow. (Jen Siska/Special to S.F. Examiner)
By Jonah Owen Lamb on January 10, 2016 1:00 am

On Friday, Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow, who has a shaved head and a dark pencil moustache, greeted his legal team with handshakes and an embrace in the case of lead attorney Tony Serra.

This was minutes before the jury’s verdict was read to a packed court.

Chow was found guilty on all counts, ending one chapter in the case that began in March 2014, with federal raids that detained more than 20 people including former State Sen. Leland Yee and Chow.

“This has been a long trial,” Judge Charles Breyer said after reading the verdict.

That wasn’t the half of it.

The case was centered on an investigation launched by the FBI, which infiltrated the organization Chow headed: the Ghee Kung Tong. But from the start, the Yee’s arrest gave the case political dimensions that only grew as it dragged on.

The trial, which didn’t begin until November 2015, was preceded by everything from allegations that Mayor Ed Lee, in a pay-to-play scheme, took money from undercover FBI agents in their wide-netted investigation, to allegations of wrongdoing hurled at San Francisco’s black leaders and a prosecutor in Alameda County, among others.

Case filings showed that the FBI’s investigation spread from Chow to Yee and up the political food chain to Lee.

From the start of the case, Judge Breyer attempted to keep the names of people caught up in the investigation from the public when he granted a gag order in the case.

Filings alleged that Lee’s underlings laundered campaign funds from an undercover FBI agent. They also alleged that Sharmin Bock, who ran for district attorney in 2011, also laundered campaign funds. She was later cleared.

It seemed that few were left out of the filings, which were often transcripts of the wires being used by FBI agents. Former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Joe Montana was even approached at one point.

Amos Brown, the head of The City’s NAACP, was alleged in the wiretaps to have taken free services from city officials on his house, and San Francisco Board of Supervisor President London Breed was alleged to have taken free gift cards from a political insider.

All denied the allegations.

Then there was the investigation itself, which involved several undercover FBI agents, one claiming to be an East Coast mafioso. Another undercover agent was taken off the case for financial misconduct.

Additionally, a San Francisco Sheriff’s deputy was investigated for his relationship with one of the case’s defendants. That investigation is pending.

The trial, itself, also metamorphosed over time.

Before Chow’s trial, which has been separated from the other defendants, Yee and former school board president Keith Jackson pleaded guilty. Then, right before Chow’s trial opened, murder and murder conspiracy charges were tacked onto Chow’s case.

Chow, who has said he plans to appeal Friday’s ruling, is set for sentencing on March 23.

Political players in the case

Leland Yee: Former State Sen. who was arrested along with Chow in 2014 and faced gun-running and racketeering charges, pleaded guilty to one racketeering charge last July as part of a plea deal. He was alleged to have traded political favors for campaign donations. Yee was California’s first Chinese American state senator.

Keith Jackson: A former school board president, and political consultant for Yee, Jackson introduced Yee to Chow who requested and received recognition from the state for his community work. Jackson pleaded guilty to racketeering along with his son Brandon Jackson and Marlon Sullivan.

Raymond Chow: AKA “Shrimp Boy,” Chow was born in China and came to San Francisco as a child. Chow, 56, was convicted of ordering the death of two rivals and for his alleged leadership of a Chinatown-based criminal gang. He is a self described former gangster who says he turned his life around after being released from prison in 2003 after testifying for federal authorities. Chow survived a famously bloody Chinatown gang war shooting called the Golden Dragon Massacre in 1977. In 1995 he was convicted of gun-related charges and sentenced to more than 20 years in prison. In 2006 he became the dragon head of the Ghee Kung Tong, a Chinatown fraternal organization. The FBI says the organization has two faces: one criminal the other legitimate.

Chow has been under the watchful eye of the FBI since his release, and was the subject of a year’s long investigation

London Breed: In the case of the Board of Supervisors President, according to the filing, Derf Butler, a politically connected businessman who worked for Yee with Jackson, told an FBI source that he “pays Supervisor Breed with untraceable debit cards for clothing and trips in exchange for advantages on contracts in San Francisco.”

Amos Brown: The head of The City’s National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Brown was named in filings which alleged his house was fixed in exchange for some unsaid favor from former Housing Authority head Henry Alvarez. He denied the allegation.

Sharmin Bock: A former district attorney candidate and Alameda County prosecutor was put on administrative leave after allegations arose from the Chow case that she committed campaign financing fraud. She was later cleared of such allegations by her employer and put back to work.

Sululagi Palega: Nearly 21 years after his son was shot and killed, court filings from the attorneys of Chow alleging Palega Sr. sold a gun to an undercover FBI agent and promised to sell more guns in the future. Palega is the manager of the Muni Transit Assistance Program for the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency.

Ed Lee: Lee’s name has swirled around the case since when early on stories emerged that indicated he took funds from undercover FBI agents. While he skirted any direct roll in the case and was never indicted, the Mayor’s campaign has denied any wrongdoing in the campaign donation allegations.

Zula Jones: Retired Human Rights Commission Employee and long-time Lee alley, Jones was caught on an FBI wiretap discussing how to illegally break up campaign donations over the $500 limit. “You got to pay to play here,” she said, according to the filings.

Nazly Mohajer: A former Human Rights Commissioner and Lee campaign was caught on FBI wiretaps working with Jones to break up large campaign donations.

[GeneChing]

Here's SF gates coverage of the verdict.


Raymond ‘Shrimp Boy’ Chow found guilty (http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Jury-reaches-verdict-in-Raymond-Shrimp-Boy-6745735.php)
By Bob Egelko and Steve Rubenstein Updated 7:42 pm, Friday, January 8, 2016

http://ww2.hdnux.com/photos/27/32/27/6137309/55/920x920.jpg
In this image provided by Jen Siska, Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow, is seen posing for a portrait in San Francisco in July 2007. Investigators say Chow is the leader of one of the most powerful Asian gangs in North America. Chow's gang is said to have lured state Sen. Leland Yee into its clutches through money and campaign contributions in exchange for legislative help, as Yee sought to build his campaign coffers to run for California secretary of state. Yee and Chow were both arraigned on federal gun and corruption charges on Wednesday, March 26, 2014. Photo: Jen Siska, Associated Press

Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow said he was a changed man after his last prison sentence for racketeering in Chinatown more than a decade ago. But jurors heard an undercover FBI agent, backed by tape recordings, describe paying Chow for illegal transactions with his underlings. And they heard former cohorts saying Chow had ordered two murders.
On Friday, after 2½ days of deliberations, the federal court jury in San Francisco found Chow guilty on all charges: conspiracy to operate a century-old community organization as a racketeering enterprise, murdering its previous leader, conspiring to try to murder another rival, five counts of dealing in stolen liquor and cigarettes, and 154 counts of money-laundering.
It was vindication for a five-year undercover federal operation that had already netted another big fish, former state Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, one of 28 defendants indicted along with Chow in 2014.
Agents posing as shady campaign contributors contacted Yee through Keith Jackson, a former San Francisco school board president who had ties to Chow’s organization. In July, Yee and Jackson pleaded guilty to racketeering and admitted that the legislator, with Jackson’s help, had accepted bribes in exchange for promises of political favors and illegally importing firearms. Their sentencing is scheduled Feb. 10.
Chow, 56, is to be sentenced March 23, and faces a mandatory life term in prison for Leung’s murder. His lawyers said he would appeal.
“I put the blame on jurors accepting the word of snitches with no integrity and no credibility,” defense attorney J. Tony Serra told reporters, referring to five co-defendants who reached plea agreements with prosecutors to testify against Chow. “This is snitch heaven. We feel disgusted.”
‘He was not unnerved’
He said Chow remained calm after U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer read the verdicts and polled the 12 jurors, who unanimously confirmed them. “He smiled ... he was almost Buddhistically accepting,” Serra said. “He was not unnerved.”
David Johnson, chief of the FBI office in San Francisco, said in a statement that the verdict “represents a just and final end to Mr. Chow’s long-running and deadly criminal career.”
Jurors declined to speak to a reporter before leaving the courthouse.
The jury evidently credited the testimony of undercover agents led by “Dave Jordan,” the alias used by an agent, who posed as an East Coast businessman with mob ties and as a devoted admirer of Chow, during three years of secretly recorded conversations. Other clandestine recordings, in which Chow appeared to express hostility to rivals Allen Leung and Jim Tat Kong, bolstered his co-defendants’ testimony that he had ordered their murders,
“If you have tapes that are perfectly consistent with informant testimony, then juries convict a great deal of the time,” said Robert Weisberg, a Stanford law professor and co-director of the Stanford Criminal Justice Center. He said he was not surprised by the verdict and expects it to be upheld on appeal.
The investigation focused on the inner workings of the Ghee Kung Tong, a long-established Chinatown “brotherhood” that prosecutors said had become a front for crime and corruption under Chow’s direction.
Chow became the tong’s leader after Leung was shot to death in February 2006 by a still-unidentified gunman at Leung’s import-export business in Chinatown.
A self-described gangster for much of his life, Chow was imprisoned in 1993 for racketeering and won early release a decade later for testifying against a gang leader. He testified last month that he had reflected on his past during his time in prison and promised himself, while meditating on a beach after his release, to live a crime-free life.
He began counseling troubled youths in minority communities and later won praise from the likes of Mayor Ed Lee and Sen. Dianne Feinstein. But prosecutors said Chow all the while was secretly plotting to take over the Ghee Kung Tong and bringing in longtime followers to run a criminal organization.
Murder charges added
Prosecutors initially charged Chow with racketeering. The murder charges were added in October after prosecutors secured guilty pleas from two co-defendants who agreed to testify in exchange for possible reductions in their sentences. One man, Kongphat Chanthavong, said he heard Chow order Leung’s murder during a feud between the two men over a loan Chow wanted from the organization.
Chow was also implicated by the alleged driver of the getaway car. In addition, jurors heard a secretly recorded conversation in which Chow supposedly told the undercover agent in 2013 that he had once advised Leung that anyone who messed around with him, or his investments, would be “gone.”
Chow, who listened to the same recording, disputed the prosecution’s transcript and said he hadn’t referred to Leung. Defense lawyers questioned the truthfulness of the prosecution witnesses, telling the jury they were convicted criminals and liars who had been allowed to meet in jail and work on their stories.
The other homicide charge involved Kong, a onetime rival in an affiliated organization, the Hop Sing Tong, who was shot to death in Mendocino County in 2013. Andy Li, one of the co-defendants who pleaded guilty, testified that Chow had ordered him to kill Kong in 2011, then later told him that the matter had been “handled.” Jurors also heard a recording in which Chow told an agent he had withdrawn protection from Kong.
The bulk of the charges against Chow involved crimes that his subordinates allegedly agreed to commit with the agent who called himself Dave Jordan. Testifying in a courtroom closed to the public, the agent described transactions with members of the tong over a three-year period for sales of supposedly stolen liquor and cigarettes, and some drug deals, with more than $2 million of the proceeds laundered to evade government detection.
The agent said Chow introduced him to his followers and approved their transactions. Jurors heard numerous recordings in which the agent thanked Chow for “making it possible” and pressed envelopes of cash on him, which Jordan said totaled more than $60,000. Chow usually protested, saying he hadn’t done anything for the money and didn’t want to know about the details — but, the agent said, he never refused payment.
‘Love and respect’
In three days of testimony, including a lengthy and sarcastic cross-examination by Assistant U.S. Attorney William Frentzen, Chow denied ever knowingly taking payoffs for crimes. He said he had introduced the agent to more than 50 tong members, for no illicit purposes. He said he deliberately steered clear of learning about their interactions and was repeatedly assured by Jordan that the payments to him were gestures of “love and respect.”
Chow’s lawyers argued that Frentzen’s accusatory questioning went too far and put words in the mouth of a defendant whose English skills were limited, though he had an interpreter to help him. They made little headway with Breyer, and have publicly accused the veteran judge of bias.
The defense was saddled with “so many handicaps ... so much misconduct” during the trial, including Breyer’s restrictions on defense funding and his rejection of many proposed defense witnesses, attorney Curtis Briggs said after the verdict.
Bob Egelko and Steve Rubenstein are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. E-mail: begelko@sfchronicle.com; srubenstein@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @egelko; @steverubesf

[hskwarrior]

I was one of those the judge would not allow to testify......i plan to if the lawyers need me to in round two.

[GeneChing]

Wonder what Shrimp Boy will get?


Prosecutors to seek 8-year prison term for ex-Sen. Leland Yee (http://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/Prosecutors-to-seek-8-year-prison-term-for-6838118.php?t=0b147b811800af33be&cmpid=twitter-premium)
By Bob Egelko February 17, 2016 Updated: February 17, 2016 7:58pm

http://ww1.hdnux.com/photos/31/33/46/6666628/7/920x1240.jpg
Leland Yee arrives at the Phillip Burton Federal Courthouse to hear additional racketeering charges against him in his corruption case in San Francisco, Calif. on Thursday, July 31, 2014. Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle Leland Yee arrives at the Phillip Burton Federal Courthouse to hear additional racketeering charges against him in his corruption case in San Francisco, Calif. on Thursday, July 31, 2014.
Federal prosecutors, portraying former state Sen. Leland Yee as a cynical and corrupt lawmaker, recommended an eight-year prison sentence Wednesday for the San Francisco Democrat, who admitted accepting bribes from undercover agents posing as campaign contributors.

Yee “was willing to betray the trust of those who elected him by being prepared to sell his vote to the highest bidder,” the U.S. attorney’s office said in a filing to U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer, who has scheduled sentencing for Wednesday.

Yee, 67, pleaded guilty in July to a racketeering conspiracy charge. He admitted accepting at least $60,000 from undercover agents in return for promises of votes on legislation, other political favors, and illegal importing of firearms from the Philippines. The contributions were to pay off a debt from his unsuccessful 2011 campaign for mayor of San Francisco and to fund his short-lived 2014 campaign for California secretary of state.

Also pleading guilty to the racketeering conspiracy was Keith Jackson, a former San Francisco school board president who served as a consultant and fundraiser for Yee, and acted as his go-between with the undercover agents. Jackson is also due to be sentenced Wednesday, and his lawyer has asked Breyer for a six-year prison term. Yee’s attorney has not yet filed his sentencing request.

The prosecution arose from a five-year undercover investigation that focused initially on a Chinatown community organization, the Ghee Kung Tong. Its leader, Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow, was convicted last month of running the organization as a racketeering enterprise and murdering its former leader. Federal agents said they encountered Yee through Jackson, who also worked with Chow.

In arguing for an eight-year sentence, and a $25,000 fine, prosecutors noted that the bribes took place over a period of nearly three years and were solicited by a veteran legislator with ambitions for high office.

“Yee is a seasoned holder of public office who knows better,” prosecutors said. In one instance, they said, he made it clear that his vote on pending legislation — extending the life of the California State Athletic Commission — depended on “which interested party was willing to pay more.”

They also noted that Yee was publicly supporting gun control at the same time he was negotiating the supposed firearms sale. The senator told an undercover agent he was “agnostic” about the issue, prosecutors said.

In one incident that was not included in the criminal charges, prosecutors said, Yee took advantage of a female constituent, who asked him for help in a child custody dispute, to begin a sexual relationship.

Prosecutors also cited a secretly recorded conversation in July 2013 in which Yee was talking about prostitution with an unidentified man, and mentioned that he was also sponsoring legislation against human trafficking.

“I don’t care if it works, the bill works or not, so long as the women think I support women,” the senator said.

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: begelko@sfchronicle.com

[hskwarrior]

Wonder what Shrimp Boy will get?

he could be facing like 140 years. I'm hoping that the appeal will prove how dirty our politicians and law enforcement really is.

[bawang]

You are fat

[GeneChing]

So ends the chapter on Lee. Now let's see what becomes of Shrimp Boy.


Former state Sen. Leland Yee sentenced to prison (http://www.mercurynews.com/crime-courts/ci_29556898/former-state-sen-leland-yee-sentenced-prison)
By Howard Mintz hmintz@mercurynews.com
POSTED: 02/24/2016 11:08:36 AM PST | UPDATED: ABOUT 5 HOURS AGO

http://extras.mnginteractive.com/live/media/site568/2016/0224/20160224__SJM-YEECASE-0224-01~1.JPG
State Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, leaves federal court in San Francisco. He was sentenced Wednesday, Feb. 24, 2016, after acknowledging in a plea

State Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, leaves federal court in San Francisco. He was sentenced Wednesday, Feb. 24, 2016, after acknowledging in a plea deal that he accepted thousands of dollars in bribes and discussed helping an undercover FBI agent buy automatic weapons from the Philippines. (Noah Berger/Associated Press)

In a courtroom packed with family, observers and media, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer on Wednesday imposed the sentence on the defrocked Bay Area politician, rejecting Yee's bid for leniency and calling his sale of votes for money a "violation of the public trust."

"The crimes that you committed have resulted in essentially an attack on democratic institutions," Breyer told Yee, who nodded as the judge addressed him. "This is a serious, serious injury to a governmental institution."

Dressed in a dark suit, a somber Yee had urged the judge to give him leniency, describing how he's "ashamed" of his crimes and hoping to make amends to family and supporters. "I have taken full responsibility for my actions and crimes I have committed," Yee said, his voice breaking. "That will haunt me the rest of my life."

Yee and his lawyer declined comment after the sentencing. The judge gave him 30 days to surrender to the U.S. Marshal's Service, which will turn him over to the federal prison system. James Lassart, Yee's lawyer, asked the judge to recommend the sentence be served at the federal prison in Taft in Kern County.

The 67-year-old Yee pleaded guilty last year to racketeering charges in connection with allegations he accepted bribes in exchange for his political influence. The sentence punctuates a case that started with a sprawling undercover FBI probe of crime in San Francisco's Chinatown and spread into the dark side of political dealing in Sacramento.

Acting U.S. Attorney Brian Stretch declined comment on the sentence. Federal prosecutors pushed for an eight-year sentence for Yee in his political corruption case, describing him in court papers as a public servant who "was willing to betray the trust of those who elected him" and "to sell his vote to the highest bidder."

"Senator Yee abused that trust in the worst possible way," Assistant U.S. Attorney Susan Badger told the judge Wednesday, urging punishment above federal sentencing guidelines. "It was to retain power as a public official."

Despite Breyer's harsh admonition of Yee, the sentence was ultimately closer to what the defense sought than the prosecution. Yee's legal team asked the judge to sentence the former secretary of state hopeful to between four years and three months to a maximum of five years and three months, citing his career in public service. The defense insisted that Yee regrets his conduct, but did not act out of greed.

"He recognizes that his actions were wrong and he is remorseful and deeply regrets his conduct," defense lawyers wrote to Breyer last week. "His widely publicized criminal activity has served as his own private punishment. He embarrassed himself, his family, and community by this shocking digression from his honorable career in public service."

Yee unsuccessfully urged the judge to consider allowing him to serve his sentence in home detention instead of prison so that he can care for his ailing wife, arguing that sending him to prison would not serve any purpose.

Yee, a longtime San Francisco Democrat, was one of several state legislators charged with crimes in recent years in scandals that rocked the state Capitol. Legislators responded to the sentencing Wednesday with further calls for reform -- state Sen. Patricia Bates, R-Laguna Niguel, introduced a bill directed at Yee's conduct to close a loophole that allows the skirting of campaign contribution limits.

"Today's sentencing of a former elected official underscores the need to close campaign finance loopholes wherever they exist," Bates said.

Yee cut a plea deal with federal prosecutors, avoiding a trial but forcing him to admit he took payments in return for promises to use his political clout for a host of powerful interests, from NFL owners to medical marijuana businesses.

Yee was set to go on trial on political corruption, money laundering and gun trafficking charges last August along with three other defendants: political consultant Keith Jackson, his son, Brandon Jackson, and former sports agent Marlon Sullivan.

Those defendants also pleaded guilty to racketeering under separate plea deals with the U.S. attorney's office. Breyer on Wednesday sentenced Keith Jackson, a former San Francisco school board president who put Yee in the FBI's cross hairs, to nine years in prison, calling him a "one-person crime wave." Prosecutors sought a 10-year term.

In the plea agreement, Yee admitted that he traded his political influence for bribes, typically offered by undercover FBI agents posing as potential campaign contributors. Yee, among other things, admitted he agreed to influence legislation for would-be medical marijuana businesses in California, an NFL team owner trying to exempt pro athletes from the state's workers' compensation laws and a fictitious FBI concocted software firm seeking government technology contracts.

The racketeering charge also contained allegations Yee tried to arrange an illegal international arms deal through the Philippines in exchange for money. Yee confirmed his role in that bizarre crime as well, but disputed that he had the ability to carry it out. Breyer called his involvement in that crime "hypocritical" and "unfathomable" given his past advocacy for gun control.

As for the political dealings, Yee admitted, for example, accepting an $11,000 cash bribe in June 2013 from an undercover FBI agent to help sponsor statewide marijuana legislation, according to his plea agreement. In addition, he admitted he laundered a $6,800 contribution to his secretary of state campaign in 2014, court records show. Overall, government officials identified more than $100,000 in bribes directed at Yee during the investigation, although his lawyers disputed that figure.

The FBI snagged Yee in the course of a five-year probe into reputed Chinatown crime boss Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow, who was convicted of racketeering charges in December after a lengthy trial. Chow is awaiting sentencing.

Howard Mintz covers legal affairs. Contact him at 408-286-0236 or follow him at Twitter.com/hmintz

[mickey]

Greetings,

I was doing some lurking around and found something that got me thinking.

http://www.linda-goodman.com/ubb/Forum29/HTML/000289.html

Even though this is one person's assertion and it may not have a shred of truth to it, it made me wonder if the reason that Shrimp Boy Chow is catching so much hell is not because he is guilty, but, because he refuses to continue to do those things anymore.


mickey

[hskwarrior]

Greetings,

I was doing some lurking around and found something that got me thinking.

http://www.linda-goodman.com/ubb/For...ML/000289.html

Even though this is one person's assertion and it may not have a shred of truth to it, it made me wonder if the reason that Shrimp Boy Chow is catching so much hell is not because he is guilty, but, because he refuses to continue to do those things anymore.


mickey

The **** going down with shrimp boy is very similar to what happened with john gotti who loved the spotlight. there was a part in the movie "gotti" when the feds were upset gotti was rubbing his fame in the feds faces who then went after him. Shrimpboy was indeed changing his ways. he was succeeding. but the one documentary on gangland made him look like he was bragging about currently doing things when he was only talking about his past. but recently, in the news, it seems our SF government is way more corrupt and doing crime than shrimp boy was

[mickey]

but recently, in the news, it seems our SF government is way more corrupt and doing crime than shrimp boy was

Greetings hskwarrior,

This is my point. When Shrimp Boy chow basically says, "I ain't your boy no more", he is suddenly a problem that must be eradicated, something that could have been done years ago. Back then, he was compliant and everyone from the pimps to the politicians was happy making moolah. The real reason to incarcerate Shrimp Boy Chow: to keep the money flowing like it used to.

Shrimp Boy Chow: The other Noriega.


mickey

[hskwarrior]

Shrimp Boy Chow: The other Noriega.

I prefer to think of raymond as the Chinese John Gotti. The feds hating him for the same reasons.

I do NOT regret ever serving under him.

[GeneChing]

So, HSK, what is the state of the Ghee Kung Tong now?


Judge rejects Raymond ‘Shrimp Boy’ Chow’s plea for new trial (http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Judge-rejects-plea-for-new-trial-for-Raymond-7960102.php)
By Bob Egelko Updated 3:43 pm, Thursday, June 2, 2016

http://ww3.hdnux.com/photos/46/65/24/10179854/3/920x920.jpg
Photo: Jen Siska, Associated Press
Raymond “Shrmp Boy” Chow faces a mandatory life prison sentence.

A federal judge denied a new trial Thursday to Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow, the leader of a Chinatown community organization, who was convicted in January of racketeering and murder.
A jury found Chow guilty of running the century-old Ghee Kung Tong as a racketeering enterprise and ordering the 2006 murder of its former leader. He faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison. The charges arose from a five-year undercover FBI investigation that also snared former state Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, convicted of accepting bribes.
U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer, who presided over the trial, turned down defense arguments for a new trial Thursday that included a claim that the judge had unfairly limited the number of witnesses testifying on Chow’s behalf. The defense called Chow and eight supporting witnesses to the stand, compared with 46 for the prosecution.
In his ruling, Breyer said Chow’s lawyers had initially proposed 70 witnesses and later reduced the number to 49, but failed to specify why most of the witnesses’ proposed testimony would be admissible in court or would not duplicate the testimony of others. Breyer said he allowed only a single defense witness on each of a series of topics, such as Chow’s good deeds and alleged FBI misconduct, but approved 17 witnesses whom the defense decided not to call.
Defense lawyers also argued that Breyer had wrongly allowed prosecutors to cross-examine Chow about his alleged involvement in the 1991 murder of a man named Danny Wong, which he had described to federal agents in 2002 as part of a plea agreement. That agreement barred prosecutors from using his statements against him, as long as he spoke truthfully.
But Breyer said Chow’s lawyer had “opened the door” by telling jurors Chow was not the kind of person who would order a murder. When a prosecutor then questioned him about the Wong murder, he denied having ordered it, contradicting his 2002 statement and thus inviting further questioning, Breyer said.
In response, defense lawyer Tyler Smith said Breyer’s ruling on the Danny Wong issue was “flat wrong” and he was confident an appeals court would overturn it.

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: egelko

[GeneChing]

...another twist to the tale.


1 defense lawyer allowed to leave Raymond ‘Shrimp Boy’ Chow case (http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/1-defense-lawyer-allowed-to-leave-Raymond-8222945.php)
By Bob Egelko Published 7:43 pm, Wednesday, June 15, 2016

http://ww4.hdnux.com/photos/47/46/10/10379839/3/920x920.jpg
Attorney Curtis Briggs has been allowed to leave the Raymond “Shrimp Boy’’ Chow case. Photo: Loren Elliott, The Chronicle
Photo: Loren Elliott, The Chronicle

The case of Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow, the Chinatown kingpin convicted of racketeering and murder, took a new twist Wednesday when a federal judge granted one defense lawyer’s request to withdraw but denied two others.
After a closed-door hearing with Chow, joined later by his lawyers, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer of San Francisco allowed attorney Curtis Briggs to leave the case but told his colleagues, J. Tony Serra and Tyler Smith, to stay on, at least for now.
Breyer did not explain his decision, and the lawyers have not disclosed why they wanted to withdraw, saying only that recent contacts with Chow had led to “irreconcilable differences,” which they can’t describe publicly because of lawyer-client confidentiality.
“All three of us are not abandoning him,” Serra, one of the state’s best-known criminal defense lawyers, said after the hearing. He said they all continue to believe in Chow’s innocence.
Briggs, interviewed separately, said he was relieved to be off the case because it was ruining him financially.
“I’ve lost everything,” he said. “I’m behind in my office rent. ... I wish him the best. I just didn’t want to be his lawyer any more.”
A jury convicted Chow in January of operating a century-old Chinatown organization, the Ghee Kung Tong, as a racketeering enterprise that trafficked in guns, drugs and stolen goods, and of ordering the murder of its former leader, Allen Leung, in 2006. He faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison.
The prosecution arose from a five-year undercover FBI investigation that implicated more than two dozen defendants, including then-state Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, who pleaded guilty to taking bribes from agents posing as contributors and was sentenced to five years in prison.
Chow’s lawyers have defended him vocally, in court and out, since he was indicted in 2014. They accused prosecutors of framing him while sparing others with stronger political connections who were also investigated by the FBI. Briggs had some sharp exchanges with Breyer during the trial, and the defense later cited the judge’s alleged unfairness toward Briggs as one of their grounds for seeking a new trial. Breyer rejected their request.
Briggs said Wednesday he had been acquainted with Chow in the past, had brought the other lawyers into the case, and remained Chow’s main point of contact until the end, taking as many as eight phone calls a day from the defendant and his family.
“At some point, I had to stop,” he said.
Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitte: @egelko

[GeneChing]

Former Associate Of "Shrimp Boy" Chow Indicted For Murder Of Tong Leader (http://www.sfgate.com/news/bayarea/article/Former-Associate-Of-Shrimp-Boy-Chow-Indicted-10888020.php)
Bay City News Service
Published 10:30 pm, Thursday, January 26, 2017
SAN FRANCISCO (BCN)

A former associate of Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow was indicted by a federal grand jury in San Francisco today on charges of participating in the 2006 murder of Chow's predecessor as the leader of a Chinatown tong.

Wen Bing Lei, 50, of Las Vegas, also known as Raymond Lei or as "Skinny Raymond," was charged with one count of murder in aid of racketeering of Chee Kung Tong civic association leader Allen Leung.

If he is convicted, the crime carries mandatory sentence of life in prison without possibility of parole.

Chow, who succeeded Leung as the dragonhead or leader of the tong, was convicted last year in federal court in San Francisco of the same crime. He was also found guilty of racketeering conspiracy, conspiring to murder another rival, money laundering and conspiring to transport stolen goods.

He was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Neither Chow nor Lei was accused of pulling the trigger against Leung, who was fatally shot by a masked gunman in his office on Feb. 27, 2006. But they were charged with responsibility for the murder by causing and aiding the crime.

Lei's indictment alleges that his purpose in participating in the murder was "to maintain and increase his position in the Chee Kung Tong."

Lei is now in federal custody on other charges, according to U.S. Attorney's Office spokesman Abraham Simmons. He is due to make an initial appearance on the murder charge before a federal magistrate in San Francisco on Tuesday.

The indictment replaces a federal criminal complaint filed against Lei on Dec. 4, 2015, about a month after Chow's trial began. The complaint charged Lei with threatening or conspiring to commit murder in aid of racketeering, which carries a sentence of up to 10 years upon conviction.

An affidavit filed with the complaint by FBI agent Michael Ward alleged that Lei "was attempting to fulfill his duties of finding the shooter in the overall plan to kill Leung."

Ward wrote that Lei had hoped to become the new dragonhead, and that although Chow ended up taking the position, Lei's status in the tong improved once Chow took over. Lei served below Chow in the hierarchy until the two had a falling out, according Ward.


Can anyone update us on the situation of these tongs now? HSK?

[GeneChing]

Ex-Calif. State Sen. Leland Yee, gun control champion, heading to prison for weapons trafficking (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/02/25/ex-calif-state-sen-leeland-yee-gun-control-champion-heading-to-prison-for-weapons-trafficking/?utm_term=.41f6b02ddaa4)
By Yanan Wang February 25, 2016

https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_908w/2010-2019/Wires/Images/2016-02-24/AP/San_Francisco_Chinatown_Crime-0faae.jpg&w=1484
A federal judge sentenced former California state senator Leland Yee on Wednesday, Feb. 24, 2016, to five years in prison. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File)

On the surface, the story of Leland Yee looks like a precipitous fall from grace.

The 67-year-old had risen steadily in the ranks of Bay Area politics since the late 80s, when he was elected to the San Francisco School Board. He then went on to sit on the city’s Board of Supervisors and in the state Assembly. The latter role saw him become the first Asian American speaker pro tem in 2004, making him the second-highest ranking Democrat in the California assembly at the time.

From 2006 onwards, Yee served as a state senator and was plotting a secretary of state campaign when his political visions were curtailed by a federal indictment in March 2014.

The arrest swept Yee and his associate Keith Jackson, 51, up in charges alongside some of the city’s most notorious characters, notable among them Chinatown gangster Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow.

[The wild tale of ‘Shrimp Boy’ Chow, notorious Chinatown ex-mobster and now alleged murderer]

It was one thing for the public to learn that Chow, a known convict, may have become embroiled in more objectionable schemes. But it was quite another to hear that Yee, a respected public figure who had supposedly distanced himself from San Francisco’s corrupt past, was being accused through the same undercover FBI investigation.

This Wednesday, Yee received a five-year prison sentence for accepting bribes and trafficking in arms.

After initially denying culpability, Yee pleaded guilty to the charges last summer.

“I hope that in your sentencing of me, you will look at my entire life and not just these crimes I have committed,” the senator implored U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer on Wednesday, the Los Angeles Times reported. “In the 67 years of my life, I have devoted much of it to the work of the community, to people here in San Francisco and in the state of California.”

Yee added that he was most ashamed to have hurt his family and supporters: “That will always weight on me, and that will always haunt me for the rest of my life.”

Breyer was unsympathetic to the calls for leniency. While holding public office, Yee had accepted thousands of dollars in campaign contributions in exchange for political favors. And on the side, he and two associates had been involved in a weapons trafficking plot.

These acts were discovered by undercover federal agents investigating organized crime in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Jackson, a former school board president who helped Yee facilitate the bribes, received a nine-year sentence.

“It must be that the public has trust in the integrity of the institution, and Mr. Yee, you abused that trust,” Breyer said, according to the Times. He called Yee’s actions “vile” and the arms dealings particularly “hypocritical” given the politician’s history of gun control advocacy.

https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_908w/2010-2019/Wires/Images/2016-02-24/AP/San_Francisco_Chinatown_Crime-54a32.jpg&w=1484
In this July 31, 2014 file photo, California state Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, leaves federal court in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Noah Berger, File)

Court records show that Yee agreed to perform certain official acts in exchange for mayoral campaign and later secretary of state campaign donations. He obliged one undercover agent who wanted him to make a call to the California Department of Public Health on behalf of an invented contract, as well as another who asked him to take a particular stance on medical marijuana legislation.

Yee also discussed buying weapons overseas and bringing them to the U.S. with two associates and an undercover agent. He accepted $6,800 and a list of arms for purchase in the Philippines.

The maneuvers were not only illegal, but also in stark contrast to what he had long purported to stand for.

Yee told CBS two years before he was arrested: “It is extremely important that individuals in the state of California do not own assault weapons. I mean that is just so crystal clear — there is no debate, no discussion.”

As a legislator, Yee supported strict gun control laws and was named to the Brady Campaign’s Gun Violence Prevention Honor Roll.

The calamitous epilogue to Yee’s career, then, seems to be an abrupt about-face. During his campaigns, Yee had styled himself as an outsider removed from the corruption that plagued San Francisco governments past.

“My parents didn’t encourage me to go into politics at all,” he told Hyphen magazine in 2011. “There was a stereotype in the Chinese community that sees politics with suspicion. Politicians aren’t honorable, they’re corrupt and unsavory.”

Some members of the public have expressed disappointment over his conviction, but many more think the five-year sentence is fair (if not too light) for someone who has admitted to abusing his position.

There is also a portion of the San Francisco community that couldn’t be less surprised.

While Yee maintained a clean-cut image on the surface, those who followed his career closely — and opposed him politically — have viewed him as a contradictory figure from the start.

He was never someone who could be trusted, they say. The signs of corruption have been there all along, and whispers about his beguiling character were part of why he came fifth in the 2011 mayoral election.

https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_908w/2010-2019/Wires/Images/2016-02-20/AP/California_Daily_Life-023fd.jpg&w=1484
Crowds jam Grant Avenue in Chinatown during a Chinese New Year festival and fair Saturday, Feb. 20, 2016, in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)

Yee was born in China’s southern Guandong province during Mao Zedong’s Communist takeover. Yee’s father was a storeowner who served in the U.S. Army during world War II, and the family fled to San Francisco Chinatown when Yee was three years old.

For the first four years, the San Francisco Bay Guardian reported, Yee lived with his sister and mother in a one-room apartment while his father sailed for the Merchant Marine. The community was tight-knit and insular.

“The movie theater, the shoe store, the barber shop, food — everything you needed you could get in Chinatown,” Yee told the Guardian. “You never had to leave.”

He eventually did leave, to go to college at UC Berkeley, then get a masters San Francisco State University and a Ph.D in child psychology at the University of Hawaii.

When he returned to Hawaii on a trip in 1992, Yee had his first little-known run-in with the law. According to the Hawaii Reporter, Yee was arrested that year for allegedly stuffing a bottle of Tropical Blend Tan Magnifier Oil into his pocket and walking out of the store.

Yee skipped his court appearance and the case was dismissed.

The incident was minor, to be sure. But it represented one of many minor transgressions which pointed to something potentially more insidious. As SF Weekly wrote in a 2011 cover story, “beneath that do-gooder veneer lurks a long history of apparent ethical lapses. During a generation in public life, Yee has become expert at talking himself out of trouble.”

Former employees at Asian Americans for Community Involvement, for which Yee was an administrator, told SF Weekly that he once used a bottle of Wite-Out to revise the medical records of the nonprofit’s beneficiaries to make their conditions seem more severe.

Another time, while serving on the city school board, Yee reportedly registered his children under a fake address so they could attend a better school.

While he was running for mayor, rallies for his opponent and current mayor Ed Lee doubled as opportunities to speak out against him, the Guardian reported. Despite his Chinatown roots, he lacked the Chinese American support that Lee enjoyed.

Rose Pak, a “Chinatown powerbroker,” told the Guardian that Yee had “no moral character.” She rattled off a list of her (unconfirmed) suspicions — “How did the guy manage to buy a million-dollar house on a $30,000 City Hall salary?” — but the gist was clear: Pak didn’t trust him.

In the words of the Guardian’s Tim Redmond, Yee was a “political puzzle”:

He’s grown, changed and developed his positions over time. Or he’s become an expert at political pandering, telling every group exactly what it wants to hear. He’s the best chance progressives have of keeping the corrupt old political machine out of City Hall — or he’s a chameleon who will be a nightmare for progressive San Francisco.

Four years later, the camouflage has been stripped away.

I spent more time with Yee than any other politician because of his involvement with Shaolin. Such a disappointment.

[mickey]

An old literary, conceptual, and social oxymoron: A clean politician.

mickey

[GeneChing]

More ‘Shrimp Boy’ fallout: Eight men indicted for alleged bid-fixing scheme (http://www.sfexaminer.com/shrimp-boy-fallout-eight-men-indicted-alleged-bid-fixing-scheme/)

http://s79f01z693v3ecoes3yyjsg1.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/sf.ShrimpBoyFallout.0409.jpg
Eight men have been indicted for allegedly fixing construction bids on work at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and elsewhere in the state. (Courtesy Roy Kaltschmidt/Lawrence Berkeley National Lab/via Flickr)

By Jonah Owen Lamb on April 7, 2017 5:16 pm

Eight men, including several heads of construction firms who have done business with The City, have been indicted for allegedly fixing federal and state bids, and in the case of four others, receiving bribes, according to the indictment filed Thursday in U.S. District Court.

The indictment and investigation come out of the FBI public corruption investigation that led to the conviction of Chinatown gangster Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow, former state Sen. Leland Yee and former school board member Keith Jackson.

Jackson and former Human Rights Commission Nazly Mohajer, as well as former commission staff member Zula Jones, are all currently facing public corruption charges in state court for their part in allegedly laundering illegal campaign contributions in order to retire Mayor Ed Lee’s 2011 campaign debt.

http://s79f01z693v3ecoes3yyjsg1.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/ZulaJonesJonah1.jpg
Former Human Rights Commission employee Zula Jones, seen here leaving court Thursday, is facing charges in the political corruption case. (Jonah Owen Lamb/S.F. Examiner)

The new alleged crimes, detailed in the indictment, took place in 2013 and 2014 and in some cases were caught on FBI wiretaps, some of which were reported by the San Francisco Examiner in August 2015.

The latest indictment alleges, in one instance, almost all of the men who were indicted conspired to fix a bid on a construction project at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratories. The conspiracy involved some of the defendants intentionally overbidding so the company with the lowest bid would get the contract. The head of the construction company who sent in the lowest bid was actually an undercover FBI agent who bribed some of the players for their part in the scheme.

Another scheme attempted to fix a bid on a state veterans affairs project in Southern California.

One of the most prominent defendants is Derf Butler, a politically connected businessman who worked with Jackson for Yee.

The eight indicted individuals are Butler, 48, of Vallejo, Anton Kalafati, 33, of San Francisco, Taj Reid, 46, of Oakland, Eric Worth, 45, of Pleasant Hill, Clifton Burch, 49, of San Lorenzo, Peter McKean, 48, of San Mateo, Len Turner, 56, of San Leandro and Lance Turner, 57, of Oakland.

THE PLAYERS
Butler, head of Butler Enterprise Group, LLC in San Francisco, and Kalafati, president of B Side, Inc. in San Francisco, allegedly lied to the FBI and tried to fix a bid on a federal project at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratories, according to the indictment.

Butler declined to comment for this story, and Kalafati could not be reached for comment.

According to the indictment, Butler took $15,000 in bribes for his part in the bid fixing and expected to be paid another $15,000. Butler was recorded on FBI wiretaps, released in court documents in 2015, talking about allegedly paying for access to San Francisco Board of Supervisors President London Breed.

Butler, told an FBI source that he “pays Supervisor Breed with untraceable debit cards for clothing and trips in exchange for advantages on contracts in San Francisco,” according to the filing.

Breed previously denied the claim.

McKean and Burch allegedly conspired with Butler to defraud the government by fixing a bid on at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratories, according to the indictment. Burch heads Empire Engineering & Construction, Inc. in Oakland, and McKean is vice president of Townsend Management, Inc. in San Francisco.

McKean’s firm has done about $6 million in contracts with The City in recent years. He did not return calls for comment.

Burch, whose company has done about $13 million in work for The City in the past four years, said he was unaware of the indictment.

“I don’t know anything about that. I was told by Derf Butler to give [Butler] a proposal,” said Burch about the alleged bid scheme. “Next thing you know, [FBI agents] are knocking on my door.”

Burch said he has no idea about any bid-rigging scheme and thought the case was closed until he got a recent visit from the FBI.

“In fact, they came to visit me the other day, and I said, ‘I thought this thing went away,’” Burch said. “I just think it’s a bunch of B.S., and they’re coming after these small contractors. It’s not fair to me at all.”

Lance Turner, Len Turner and Reid allegedly conspired to fix a bid on the same Berkeley project, according to the indictment. None could be reached for comment Friday.

Worthen, a former Assistant Deputy Secretary of Administrative Affairs, and Reid allegedly conspired to receive bribes in connection with a state bid-fixing scheme, according to the indictment.

AUDITS BY THE CITY
Three of the defendants — Butler, Burch and McKean — had contracts with the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, which plans to audit their bids, according to SFPUC spokesperson Charles Sheehan.

http://s79f01z693v3ecoes3yyjsg1.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/sfWind3.0425.jpg
The headquarters for the SFPUC at 525 Golden Gate Ave. has not been living up to its sustainable expectations. (Jessica Christian/S.F. Examiner)

Sheehan said the SFPUC’s competitive bidding process helps prevent issues like bid-rigging, but noted they also periodically audit bids.When there is an issue, the SFPUC goes back and audits the billing and payments.

“In cases like this, when there may be an issue, and [in] this particular case, we are going to go back and review these contracts and review audits,” he said.

Burch’s firm, Empire Engineering & Construction, also did work for the Parks and Recreation Department. A spokesperson for Rec and Park said they would not be auditing any bids.

“We can confirm that from fall 2013 through early 2015, Empire Engineering and Construction installed and maintained temporary chain link fencing around Golden Gate Park’s Lily Pond for a total cost of $4,982,” spokesperson Connie Chan said in an email. “I would have to defer you to talk to City Attorney or District Attorney whether or not the City would be investigating this since we do not have jurisdiction or capacity for legal investigation.”

The City Attorney’s Office did not return calls for comment.

The Port Authority, Mayor’s Office Of Housing, San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, Public Works and the Office of the City Administrator did not return calls for comments regarding their contracts with Butler and Burch.

All eight defendants are scheduled to make their first court appearance April 17.

S.F. Examiner Staff Writer Michael Barba contributed to this story.

I guess there will be more next week. :(

[GeneChing]

This just keeps going.

Not-guilty pleas in alleged developer bid-rigging scheme (http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Not-guilty-pleas-in-alleged-developer-bid-rigging-11081430.php)
By Bob Egelko Updated 2:58 pm, Tuesday, April 18, 2017

http://ww4.hdnux.com/photos/46/12/65/10005871/37/920x920.jpg
Photo: STOCK XCHANGE

The son of the Oakland City Council president and three Bay Area building company executives have pleaded not guilty to charges of agreeing to accept payoffs from an undercover FBI informant in exchange for favorable treatment on local construction contracts.
Taj Reid, 46, of Oakland, son of Councilman Larry Reid, and Anton Kalafati, 33, of San Francisco, president of the construction firm B Side Inc., entered their pleas Tuesday before a federal magistrate. Derf Butler, 53, of Vallejo, president of Butler Enterprise Group, and Clifton Burch, 49, of San Lorenzo, president of Empire Engineering and Construction, pleaded not guilty on Monday.
All four are free on $50,000 bonds. Arraignments are scheduled in the next week for four more defendants in the bid-rigging case, including Eric Worthen, 45, of Pleasant Hill, a former official with the state Department of Veterans Affairs.
The case is a product of the 2012-14 FBI investigation that led to the convictions of state Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, and Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow, leader of a Chinatown community organization. Yee pleaded guilty to accepting bribes from agents posing as campaign contributors and was sentenced to five years in prison. Chow, found guilty of running his organization as a racketeering enterprise that trafficked in drugs and guns, drew a life sentence.
Keith Jackson, a former San Francisco school board president and a fundraiser for Yee, pleaded guilty to arranging Yee’s bribes and to other crimes and was sentenced to nine years. Prosecutors said Jackson also met with an undercover FBI informant, who he believed was a developer, and put him contact with defendants in the current case.

[David Jamieson]

That's what a greedy guts gets in the end.

One could say Karma....

I heard it like this recently: "If you make plans and things don't work out or go as planned, we call that bad luck, if we don't make plans and things go well, we call that good luck, but if despite our schemes, if we are caught out, we call that fate".

[GeneChing]

I wonder if there's foreshadowing to Leland Yee's fate.


‘King of the Yees’ rules in Chinatown generational turmoil (http://chicago.suntimes.com/entertainment/king-of-the-yees-rules-in-chinatown-generational-turmoil/)
STAGE REVIEWS 04/12/2017, 06:59pm

https://suntimesmedia.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/yees_06.jpg?w=763
Daniel Smither (far left), with Francis Jue as Larry Yee and Stephenie Soohyun Park as his daughter, Lauren, in the Goodman Theatre world premiere of "King of the Yees." | Photo: Liz Lauren
Hedy Weiss @HedyWeissCritic

First, a warning to anyone heading to see “King of the Yees,” Lauren Yee’s enchanting play that is set in modern-day San Francisco’s Chinatown, and traces the transformation in a father-daughter relationship with all the tools of meta-theatrics, identity satire and a test of determination straight out of “Into the Woods.”


‘KING OF THE YEES’
Recommended
When: Through April 30
Where: Goodman Theatre, 170 N. Dearborn
Tickets: $10-$40
Info: www.GoodmanTheatre.org
Run time: 2 hours and 10 minutes, with one intermission

Here it is: You will, without any question, fall madly in love with Larry Yee, or more precisely, with Francis Jue, the wiry, wide-eyed, shrewdly comic, comically un-hip and altogether remarkable actor who plays him with such effortless guile. This is the father you have loved with all your heart, as well as the man trapped (for better and for worse) in the thinking of a very different generation. He also just might be the most irresistible old-school style, first-generation American immigrant to arrive on a stage since Leo Rosten’s Hyman Kaplan enrolled in night school (and yes, the Jewish reference is relevant here).

Commissioned by the Goodman Theatre, and now receiving its world premiere here (in association with the Center Theater Group of Los Angeles), Yee’s play is set against the iconic imperial Chinese red doors that serve as the entryway to Yee Fong Toy, an “obsolescent” family association with dwindling membership that stands in the center of San Francisco’s Chinatown. Once the great social hub for the many Chinese men who arrived in this country, without their families, to work on the transcontinental railroad or in the Gold Rush, this distinctive neighborhood is now threatened with gentrification and an increasingly scattered ethnic population whose ties to ancient family roots (and to their own immediate family roots) have grown frayed, at best. And in a real sense, Yee’s play is a playful homage to that history, as well as a clear-eyed appreciation of what has been lost and gained with assimilation.

https://suntimesmedia.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/yees_01-1.jpg?w=1024&h=689
Rammel Chan (left) and Angela Lin (as Lion dancer) in “King of the Yees,” at the Goodman Theatre. | Photo: Liz Lauren

So just who is Mr. Yee? He is a 60-year-old husband and proud father of playwright Lauren (so ideally portrayed by Stephenie Soohyun Park that you might have to check your program to clarify things). And while he has spent years working for the telephone company, he also has devoted almost all his time and energy as a volunteer for Leland Yee, an on-the-rise local politician who is no relation, but whose name alone inspires an almost irrational loyalty.

Yee, at once savvy and naive, is just deluded enough to see himself as part of the political machine that will keep his heritage alive. This is not so much the case with his 30-year-old daughter, a Yale graduate married to a Jewish attorney who is now preparing to move from her home in New York to Berlin, Germany— even ****her away from her dad. Lauren never learned Chinese, has no nostalgia for Chinatown, and is more than a little cynical about her father’s tireless (and wholly unheralded) work for Leland, who is now running for California’s Secretary of State. She is fond of her dad, but can’t really connect with him or his devotion to the Yee name. She also is notably irked by his persistent questions about why she still has no children.

All this is classic generation gap conflict material. But the real Lauren Yee has brought ultra-modern theatrical tricks to her storytelling with the help of designers William Boles (set), Izumi Inaba (costumes), Heather Gilbert (lighting), Mikhail Fiksel (sound) and Mike Tutaj (projections). And the actor playing her father, and the actress playing the writer herself seem so real you forget they are acting. In addition, two other actors (Angela Lin and Daniel Smith) are on hand, ready to play the roles in the “meta” production of Yee’s play that is about to go into rehearsal. Sounds confusing, but Yee (the real-life playwright), and director Joshua Kahan Brody make it all perfectly clear, with the layers of reality and performance expertly (and often comically) interwoven.
The plot twist here concerns what happens on the night Larry Yee has put together a big fundraiser for Leland at a local Chinese restaurant. Disaster strikes, and when Lauren’s father suddenly is nowhere to be found she embarks on a frantic quest to find him that involves the gathering of three symbolic things — a special liquor, oranges and firecrackers. It’s a fairy tale-style pursuit, with the actors, including the deftly changeable Rammel Chan, assuming a slew of different guises along the way. But it puts Lauren in touch with her roots, and finally enables her to unlock the door to her own heart, and to her father’s seemingly antique obsessions.

The whole production also might have been stronger had it been trimmed back to an intermission-less 100 minutes. But then there is Francis Jue. Leaving the theater I couldn’t help but put a twist on that old song by The Bobbettes, “Mr. Lee.” You, too, might find yourself with an unlikely crush, but this time you’ll be singing “Mr. Yee, Mr. Yee, oh Mr. Yee.”

[GeneChing]

Posting this here because Chow was a survivor of the Golden Dragon Massacre (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?67441-Shrimp-Boy-and-the-Senator&p=1265209#post1265209).


Freed killer in Golden Dragon massacre: It will take ‘lifetimes to make amends’ (http://www.sfchronicle.com/news/article/Freed-killer-in-Golden-Dragon-massacre-It-will-12166091.php)
By Evan Sernoffsky September 1, 2017 Updated: September 1, 2017 8:43am

http://ww1.hdnux.com/photos/65/41/20/14029884/3/920x920.jpg
Tom Yu, in a 1978 photo, was the mastermind who plotted the massacre at the Golden Dragon.

No one thought Melvin Yu would ever again walk the streets of San Francisco — not even him.

But one of the triggermen in the Golden Dragon massacre in Chinatown, which happened 40 years ago Monday, was paroled from state prison in 2015. And though the federal government took custody of him and tried to deport him to China, federal immigration officials said his native country has not provided travel documents.

So he was released in October 2015, spared by an anomaly in immigration policy. He is back in San Francisco, living a quiet life after expressing regret about his actions as a teenager, turning to religion and seeking redemption during his long stretch behind bars.

“I’m trying to get my life together,” Yu, now 57, said in a brief telephone interview with The Chronicle, his first since being released. “All I can say is I’m trying to make amends and do good. I have a second chance at life.

“It will take me a few lifetimes to make amends,” he said, “but I’m trying to do my best.”

It may seem surprising that a person accused of a mass killing would ever be released. But the Golden Dragon shooters were just 17 when, while pursuing revenge for their Joe Boys gang, they slaughtered five bystanders and wounded 11 others in the crowded restaurant. Even if they committed the same crime today, their ages would make them ineligible for the death penalty.

All these years later, the fates of some of the men involved in the massacre — the three shooters and the one who planned it — are still being sorted out.

One of the men, Curtis Tam, was released in October 1991, the result of a lighter second-degree murder sentence that a judge handed down after he testified against the others. Tam was a last-minute addition to the hit squad, and he said he had fired his sawed-off shotgun only into the restaurant’s furniture, pretending to be aiming at people.


Retired city police Sgt. Daniel Foley, who helped solve the case, said Tam, by cooperating, was “the one person in that whole crowd that had a conscience.”

Another shooter, Peter Ng, who admitted opening fire with a shotgun and a revolver, was convicted of five counts of first-degree murder. He can seek parole in 2020 after being denied release for the eighth time in 2015.

Tom Yu — no relation to Melvin Yu — had stayed back at a friend’s home in Pacifica during the killing, but he also was convicted of five counts of first-degree murder as the attack’s chief plotter. He was 18 at the time of the rampage. In June, a state board found him suitable for parole after nine rejections, and a final decision could reach the governor’s desk in mid-September, officials said.

When Melvin Yu sought his release, he opened up about his life before, during and after one of San Francisco’s most infamous crimes.

He told the parole board that after he came to the United States in 1973 at age 13, he had difficulty adjusting to the country’s culture and language, and struggled in school. In high school he fell in with Chinatown’s Joe Boys, who clashed with the Hop Sing and Wah Ching gangs.


00:01
01:30
Five people were killed early the morning of Sept. 4, 1977, in an atrocity that altered the lives of everyone in that Chinatown restaurant — as well as Chinatown itself.

Media: San Francisco Chronicle
“I want them to accept me, and I was living a life you know, for the gang,” Yu testified, according to a transcript. “It’s selfish on my part because I want to, you know, prove that, you know, I could be a gangster.”

Before the massacre, the Joe Boys were fixated on revenge, following a Fourth of July gunbattle that left a member of their crew dead — and Yu with a bullet wound to the arm. In the early morning of Sept. 4, 1977, the group got a call from a Chinatown lookout, saying members of the Wah Ching and Hop Sing were eating at the Golden Dragon. Carrying a semiautomatic rifle, Yu entered the restaurant first, stopped in the main dining room, and sprayed the crowd.


“I go in there, so I had to start shooting first,” Yu said, “because I don’t want the other gang members shooting at us.”

As the assailants darted back out the door and into a getaway car, the Golden Dragon was a scene of chaos and death. Slain were waiter Fong Wong, 48, and guests Denise Louie, 21, Paul Wada, 25, Donald Kwan, 20, and 18-year-old Calvin Fong. None among the dead and wounded was a gang member.

“It was a horrible crime,” Foley said. “They didn’t really know who all their enemies were by sight. They showed a total disregard and just opened fire on everybody.”

Melvin Yu admitted as much in his parole hearing, saying, “My crime — the heinous crime that I did, I know I’ll never get out of prison, which is fine with me.” He said if he was released, he expected to be deported, and would live with a cousin in Hong Kong.

But he was granted parole during a 2014 hearing, and immigration officials who initially took custody of him freed him the next year. They had little other choice.

China is one of several nations identified by the U.S. as “recalcitrant,” known for delaying or refusing the repatriation of citizens for various reasons. And given that Yu wasn’t likely to be removed anytime soon, he was released under a Supreme Court ruling that prevents the government from indefinitely holding people for deportation.


A spokeswoman for the Chinese Consulate in San Francisco said it had no record of a deportation request for Melvin Yu.

Bill Hing, a University of San Francisco professor and immigration attorney, said Yu’s case isn’t uncommon. He has even urged countries not to issue travel documents to immigrants he has represented — a last-ditch strategy to protect them.

“I believe that China is making a judgment that they don’t want the person because he had a violent history, and his violence is the product of the socioeconomic situation of growing up in the United States,” Hing said.

So Yu is back in San Francisco. He told The Chronicle he did not want to speak at length or “relive the incident,” but that he is sorry.

“I just want to move on,” he said.


Evan Sernoffsky is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: esernoffsky@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @EvanSernoffsky