As part of a plea agreement, former California Democratic state senator Leland Yee plead guilty to one count of racketeering, as did three other co-defendants. Yee, in case you don’t remember, was charged with being involved in a wide web of corruption, including gun running (a special irony for a politician known for supporting gun control), murder for hire schemes, drugs, extortion, and campaign finance law violations.
If he’s only pleading guilty to one charge, my guess would be that Yee is going to flip and testify on Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow and other defendants in the sprawling case. However, the actual plea agreement ((via Dwight via Popehat) evidently doesn’t specify cooperation against Chow or other defendants.
It’s great they’re getting Yee to plead, but since Yee (being a state senator) was the “big fish” and given the lengthy list of original charges, the fact they’re only getting him to cop to one count suggests the case may have had some shaky planks. (Maybe an unreliable witness?) Or that there was so much more they could nail Chow on that they didn’t want to keep spending so much time on Yee.
Or that political cronies somehow managed to swing him a soft deal…
Tags: California, Crime, Democrats, Guns, Leland Yee, Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow
[…] Democratic State Senator Leland Yee was supposed to be the big fish, but then he plead guilty to one piddling count of racketeering. That leaves Chow as the big fish, especially since so many lesser defendants have plead guilty to […]