Shrimp Boy and the Senator

[hskwarrior]

http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/L...ng-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


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]

[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
By Matier & Ross September 8, 2015 Updated: September 8, 2015 5:23pm


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
By Bob Egelko Updated 6:27 pm, Wednesday, September 9, 2015


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]

..................................

[GeneChing]

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

Prosecutors say they can link ‘Shrimp Boy’ Chow to 2006 murder
By Bob Egelko Updated 7:19 pm, Monday, September 28, 2015


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]

..........................

[GeneChing]

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

Prosecutor: ‘Shrimp Boy’ Chow to face murder solicitation charges
By Bob Egelko Updated 8:18 pm, Tuesday, October 13, 2015


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/...or-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


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.