Posts Tagged ‘Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow’
Wednesday, February 24th, 2016
Former California State Democratic Senator Leland Yee today was sentenced to 5 years in prison and a $20,000 fine.
“Yee also agreed to forfeit about $33,000, mostly from his campaign account for secretary of state, according to a court filing by prosecutors.”
Huh? If it’s in a campaign fund, unless Yee donated it to himself, shouldn’t it go back to his campaign contributors?
It being California, it would not surprise me at all to see him paroled well before that five years is up. (Update: Mike wrote to remind me that Yee coped to Federal rather than State charges, as Uncle Sam’s parole tends to be a lot tougher to earn.)
Reminder: Former Yee co-defendant Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow has been convicted on 152 counts, but has not been sentenced yet.
(Hat tip: Dwight.)
Tags:California, Crime, Democrats, Leland Yee, Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow
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Friday, January 8th, 2016
Via Dwight comes word that Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow has been convicted of all 162 counts against him.
After all his co-defendents (including California State Democratic Senator Leland Yee) had plead guilty to lesser charges, Chow is the one taking the fall for “arranging the murders of two gang rivals and overseeing crimes ranging from money laundering to drug trafficking.” I’m not able to find a list of all of those 162 charges against him, but presumably that includes the gun-running charge as well.
Tags:California, Crime, Democrats, Leland Yee, Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow, San Francisco
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Wednesday, November 11th, 2015
Looks like it’s going to be all crime blotter news today.
First up: Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow’s racketeering trial started November 9.
Chow, 56, is charged with running the Ghee Tung Kong, a Chinese American community organization he has led since 2006, as a racketeering enterprise that trafficked in guns, drugs and stolen goods. He is also charged with arranging the murder of the organization’s previous leader, Allen Leung, and with conspiring to seek the murder of an alleged gang rival, Jim Tat Kong, who was shot to death in Mendocino County in October 2013. He has been held without bail since his arrest in March 2014.
First 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 lesser charges.
The biggest charge against him is, of course, murder, but the evidence presented thus far on that is hardly conclusive.
(Hat tip: Dwight.)
Tags:California, Crime, Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow
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Thursday, September 10th, 2015
Via Dwight comes word that “Six defendants in the sweeping criminal prosecution of Raymond ‘Shrimp Boy’ Chow, part of a public corruption and organized crime investigation that ensnared a once-prominent Democratic politician, pleaded guilty on Wednesday, prosecutors said.”
For those playing along on the home game:
George Nieh pleaded guilty to every count filed against him, including 146 counts of money laundering and a slew of weapons and drug charges.
Leslie Yun pleaded guilty to five counts of money laundering and drug-related charges.
Kevin Siu pleaded guilty to eight of the 24 money laundering counts against him, and
Alan Chiu pleaded guilty to 13 of 36 money laundering charges.
Yat Wa Pau pleaded guilty to trafficking in contraband cigarettes and admitted to his involvement in sales of contraband cigarettes worth more than $300,000.
Andy Li pleaded guilty to felony possession of a firearm along with money laundering and marijuana possession.
Funny how California Democratic State Senator Leland Yee, the ostensible “big fish” in the investigation, plead guilty to a single charge, while Nieh (who was reportedly one of Chow’s closest associates), plead guilty to everything.
And Chow’s own trial is still pending…
Tags:Alan Chiu, Andy Li, California, Crime, Democrats, George Nieh, Kevin Siu, Leland Yee, Leslie Yun, Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow, Yat Wa Pau
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Wednesday, August 5th, 2015
Though California Democratic state senator Leland Yee has plead guilty to one charge of racketeering, the trial of confederate Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow is still pending. And his lawyers have dropped a bombshell of a charge:
In an explosive court filing, lawyers for a former Chinatown gang leader said Tuesday that federal authorities shielded San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee from prosecution despite evidence from the FBI that he had taken bribes, funneled through two members of the city’s Human Rights Commission.
The two alleged go-betweens, Nazly Mohajer and Zula Jones, both told undercover federal agents that “Ed Lee knew he was taking money illegally,” attorneys for Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow said in federal court papers.
Snip.
“The FBI alleged in discovery that Ed Lee took substantial bribes in exchange for political favors and that Human Rights Commissioners Nazly Mohajer and Zula Jones hustled in these bribes for the mayor,” defense lawyer Curtis Briggs said in a filing seeking dismissal of the charges against Chow. Briggs is a law partner of noted attorney J. Tony Serra, who has been representing Chow in court.
Lee “took over $20,000 from federal agents in his first four months in office,” Briggs said. He said the government “successfully engaged both (state Sen. Leland) Yee and Mayor Ed Lee in bribery scandals, yet only indicted Yee,” who had run unsuccessfully against Lee for mayor in 2011.
Assuming these charges are true, why would the FBI charge one corrupt California Democratic politician taking bribes, but not another?
A good question…
Tags:California, Crime, Democrats, Ed Lee, Leland Yee, Nazly Mohajer, Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow, Zula Jones
Posted in Crime, Democrats | 2 Comments »
Thursday, July 2nd, 2015
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
Posted in Crime, Democrats, Guns | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, August 27th, 2014
This story came out while I was away in London, but evidently Leland Yee’s defense attorney is claiming that the FBI’s lead informat is unreliable because he has some baggage of his own:
the attorney for former San Francisco school board President Keith Jackson, one of 29 defendants caught up in the case, said the FBI had removed an unnamed undercover agent from the probe and reprimanded him because of his own financial misconduct.
A source familiar with the government’s case identified the agent as the man who went by the last name King when he showed up in the Bay Area in fall 2011 saying he was looking to invest in Bay Area commercial real estate projects.
The agent paid $37,000 in consulting fees to Jackson, who was raising money for Yee’s mayoral campaign, to help him pursue the real estate opportunities, according to Thursday’s filing in federal court by Jackson attorney James Brosnahan.
As we earlier reported, King Funding Group was the Atlanta employer listed by an undercover FBI agent who, supposedly with Jackson’s help, allegedly laundered $500 checks to Yee’s campaign in October 2011.
“King” disappeared from the scene in mid-2012, telling targets in the case that his father had died and he was working on business interests in Panama, Brosnahan’s filing said.
The filing by Brosnahan, however, suggests that was about the time the agent’s “financial misconduct” was landing him in trouble with the FBI.
This may or may not be true, and may or may not hinder the FBI’s case against Yee, Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow and their other co-defenders. But it seemed at least worth mentioning…
In other Yee indictment news, both defense attorneys and prosecutors agree that the massive case will be split up for separate trails, but there’s no detail yet on when and how. This is not an unusual move for a case with 29 separate defendents…
Tags:California, Crime, Democrats, FBI, Keith Jackson, Leland Yee, Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow
Posted in Crime, Democrats | 1 Comment »
Thursday, June 5th, 2014
I’ve been busy with other things, so until Dwight covered it, I didn’t realize that indicted California state senator Leland Yee’s suspended campaign still came in third in the race for California Secretary of State, pulling in a quarter-million votes.
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.
“Sure, he’s been indicted on a gun trafficking and murder-for-hire scheme, but I really liked his opposition to banning shark fin soup.”
Alternately, maybe all California voters just naturally assume that all Democratic office holders in their state are crooked.
In other Leland Yee news:
California’s Senate Rules Committee refuses to release his legislative calendar. Because you puny peasants have no right to know what slimy deals your betters are making behind closed doors.
The presiding judge has ordered the material released to the defense attorneys sealed, as per Yee’s wishes, but over the objections of the lawyers for Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow.
“There are sensitive materials identifying numerous individuals who are not believed to have engaged in any criminal activities, but who were nonetheless captured on FBI surveillance or documented in FBI reports, for example after being introduced by charged defendants to undercover agents. Such materials, if improperly disclosed, could be used to besmirch these otherwise innocent individuals,” noted the April 8 motion for a protective order.
Chow’s lawyers, Tony Serra and his team, who claim their client is innocent, take issue with this reasoning.
”He knows the politicians, the celebrities who were investigated and through this order of his gagging us, there’s an implication he’s almost protecting their reputation,” Serra said about Breyer.
Tags:California, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Leland Yee, Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow
Posted in Crime, Democrats, Elections | 2 Comments »
Monday, April 21st, 2014
More details and repercussions from the indictment of California State Senator Leland Yee and his criminal associates on gun-trafficking and other charges:
Feds plan to add racketeering charges to the Yee indictment.
Prominent Democrat Willie Brown (former Speaker of the California House and Mayor of San Francisco) wonders what the big deal is with the Yee indictment:
Give the guy a break. When all is said and done, his alleged crimes come down to taking campaign contributions in return for issuing proclamations, using campaign funds to set up a meeting and taking campaign funds for writing a letter.
Never did he sell his vote, steal public money or actually put money in his own pocket, as far as I can tell.
None of Yee’s decisions affected the public.
I’ve gone over the FBI’s criminal complaint and, from what I can see, the biggest crime he was accused of was trying hustle some undercover FBI agents who were out to get alleged Chinatown gang leader Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow.
First, I don’t think Brown has read that indictment carefully enough. Second, notice how prominent Democrats seem to think that some felonies are just no big deal…
“Leland Yee symbolizes the pay-to-play virus that has infected our entire body politic.”
But don’t worry, Californians! Your Democratic Party-controlled government has the solution to all this slime and corruption: “intensive ethics training for senators and staffers.” Because ordinarily people just wouldn’t know that engaging in illegal arms trafficking to Islamic rebels was wrong. “Was that wrong? Should I not have done that?”
Alleged money laundering co-conspirators Leslie Yun and James Pau granted bail. They’re also accused of stolen stolen cigarette smuggling, marijuana distribution, and owning “a massage parlor that provides sexual services for its customers.”
Back when Yee was a mere school board President, someone once sent him a message in the form of a pig’s head with a clever embedded in its skull.
Yee’s defense team accuses FBI of entrapment.
Chow’s lawyers also accuse the FBI of entrapment, saying that the FBI threw millions of dollars at him. His lawyer also says that “the $58,000 Chow received from undercover agents were legal gratuities, not kickbacks for illegal activity.” Yeah, good luck pushing that theory…
Tags:California, Crime, Democrats, FBI, Guns, James Pau, Leland Yee, Leslie Yun, prostitution, Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow, San Francisco, Willie Brown
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Monday, April 7th, 2014
Here are some updates to the story of California Democratic State Senator Leland Yee and Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow’s federal weapons trafficking charges, via Dwight and Instapundit (among others):
“State Sen. Leland Yee spent campaign donations in recent years to travel to the Philippines, the country from which federal authorities accuse him of arranging to smuggle hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of military-style weapons.” (Hat tip: Dwight.)
How did Yee escape terrorism charges? The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) is not among the “56 foreign terrorist organizations designated by the U.S. State Department.”
Both Yee and Chow hire new lawyers.
Problem: California Democratic State Senator is illegally trafficking arms to international terrorist groups. Solution: California Democrats ask Obama to ban the import of “assault weapons.” It’s like Al Capone’s fellow mobsters making an impassioned plea for stricter laws on bootlegging. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
Yee wasn’t just a gun control fanatic, he was an anti-corruption crusader as well. (Insta again.)
It took more than a week for MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow to finally mention that Yee was indicted for arms trafficking…and she still failed to mention he was a staunch advocate for gun control.
The guns of the Leland Yee scandal. I’d like to fire a Tavor Assault Rifle, but they seem to garner a hefty premium over AR-pattern rifles. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
Last time I checked, CNN still hasn’t covered the Leland Yee gun trafficking story. But thank God they covered his opposition to banning shark fin soup!
And speaking of CNN, maybe it’s not a coincidence that their ratings are near an all-time low.
San Francisco journalist spends a thousand or so words not explaining why San Francisco’s numerous professional journalists didn’t even catch a whiff of the the scandal. Hey, I think my tweet above just may have a clue…
Though he wasn’t in custody during the initial arraignment, sports agent co-conspirator Marlon Sullivan was taken into custody in Princeton, New Jersey.
Tags:California, CNN, Crime, Democrats, Guns, Leland Yee, Marlon Sullivan, Media Watch, MSNBC, Rachel Maddow, Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow, Tavor Assault Rifle
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