Shrimp Boy and the Senator

[hskwarrior]

[hskwarrior]

[hskwarrior]

tttttttttt

[GeneChing]

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

Indicted Yee gets a quarter-million votes for secretary of state


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...&v=exAuNXzn3fw


http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&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


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
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
Updated 8:27 pm, Friday, July 25, 2014


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"