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Thread: Shrimp Boy and the Senator

  1. #241
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    New trial plea denied

    So, HSK, what is the state of the Ghee Kung Tong now?

    Judge rejects Raymond ‘Shrimp Boy’ Chow’s plea for new trial
    By Bob Egelko Updated 3:43 pm, Thursday, June 2, 2016


    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
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  2. #242
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    Just when you thought it was over...

    ...another twist to the tale.

    1 defense lawyer allowed to leave Raymond ‘Shrimp Boy’ Chow case
    By Bob Egelko Published 7:43 pm, Wednesday, June 15, 2016


    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
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  3. #243
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    Skinny Raymond

    Former Associate Of "Shrimp Boy" Chow Indicted For Murder Of Tong Leader
    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?
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  4. #244
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    Will Yee serve five?

    Ex-Calif. State Sen. Leland Yee, gun control champion, heading to prison for weapons trafficking
    By Yanan Wang February 25, 2016


    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.


    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.


    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.
    Gene Ching
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  5. #245
    An old literary, conceptual, and social oxymoron: A clean politician.

    mickey

  6. #246
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    More fallout

    More ‘Shrimp Boy’ fallout: Eight men indicted for alleged bid-fixing scheme


    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.


    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.


    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.
    Gene Ching
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  7. #247
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    And more...

    This just keeps going.
    Not-guilty pleas in alleged developer bid-rigging scheme
    By Bob Egelko Updated 2:58 pm, Tuesday, April 18, 2017


    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.
    Gene Ching
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  8. #248
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    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".
    Kung Fu is good for you.

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    And now for something completely different

    I wonder if there's foreshadowing to Leland Yee's fate.

    ‘King of the Yees’ rules in Chinatown generational turmoil
    STAGE REVIEWS 04/12/2017, 06:59pm


    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.


    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.”
    Gene Ching
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  10. #250
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    Posting this here because Chow was a survivor of the Golden Dragon Massacre.

    Freed killer in Golden Dragon massacre: It will take ‘lifetimes to make amends’
    By Evan Sernoffsky September 1, 2017 Updated: September 1, 2017 8:43am


    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
    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
    Author of Shaolin Trips
    Support our forum by getting your gear at MartialArtSmart

  11. #251
    Join Date
    Jan 1970
    Location
    Fremont, CA, U.S.A.
    Posts
    47,947

    Remember Joe the Plumber?

    Remember this?

    ttt for 2018?


    Democrat Scandal: California Gun Control Senator Yee Heads to Prison: Gun Trafficking
    BY SCOTT OSBORN ON FEBRUARY 27, 2018

    California Democrats are speechless as they watch their prized Sacramento gun control senator, Leland Yee, head to prison for weapons trafficking, accepting bribes, and extorting money.
    “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.”

    Breyer called his involvement in that crime “hypocritical” and “unfathomable” given his past advocacy for gun control.



    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. 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 had risen steadily in the ranks of Bay Area politics since the late 80s. His career began when he was elected to the San Francisco School Board.
    Prior to becoming a state senator, Yee was also a California State Assemblyman. Yee was Supervisor of San Francisco’s Sunset District and was a member and President of the San Francisco School Board. In 2004 Yee became the first Asian American to be appointed Speaker pro Tempore. He was the second highest ranking Democrat of the California State Assembly.

    Yee was arrested by the FBI on March 26, 2014 on charges related to public corruption and gun trafficking. Specifically buying automatic firearms and shoulder-launched missiles from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. MILF is an Islamist extremist group located in the southern Philippines.

    Yee attempted to re-sell those weapons to an undercover FBI agent. He went further to accept a $10,000 bribe from an undercover agent. This in exchange for placing a call to the California Department of Public Health regarding a contract at the organization.

    Former California State Senator Leland Yee admitted this week that he accepted bribes and extorted money.
    He acknowledged accepting $11,000 in exchange for setting up a meeting with another state senator, $10,000 for recommending someone for a grant, and $6,800 for providing a certificate on California state senate letterhead honoring the Ghee Kung Tong.

    Overall, government officials identified more than $100,000 in bribes directed at Yee during the investigation.

    He also acknowledged that he discussed helping an undercover FBI agent buy automatic weapons from the Philippines. They were intended to be brought to the US for distribution.

    In a lengthy sentencing memo, prosecutors outlined what they saw as a pattern of bad behavior by Lee that went far beyond the charges he pleaded guilty to.
    His dishonesty in the early stages of the investigation, they wrote, “demonstrate a venal attitude toward his position as an elected public official and a willingness to abuse his position of trust in any number of ways. They also reveal a disconnect between the face that Yee puts out to the public and his true nature and character. They necessarily cast a shadow over his career as a public servant and legislation he has sponsored.”

    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.”

    The FBI snagged Yee in the course of a five-year probe into reputed Chinatown crime boss Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow.

    Chow was convicted of racketeering charges in December and after a lengthy trial is awaiting sentencing.

    Yee was a vocal advocate for gun control, both before and while engaged in gun running.

    In 2006 Yee was named to the Gun Violence Prevention Honor Roll by the Brady Campaign. It was for his efforts that included co-authoring a first-in-the-nation bill to require new semiautomatic handguns be equipped with ballistics identification technology known as micro-stamping.

    In May 2012, together with Kevin de León, Yee proposed legislation to ban any semi-automatic rifle that used a bullet button that makes the rifle a “fixed magazine rifle.” SB 249 would ban conversion kits and rifles.

    Yee is quoted as saying, “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.”

    Hypocrite!
    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
    Author of Shaolin Trips
    Support our forum by getting your gear at MartialArtSmart

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