SFgate.com
FBI entrapped Raymond 'Shrimp Boy' Chow, lawyer says
Gang leader's lawyer questions government's tactics
April 8, 2014
Bob Egelko
As state Sen. Leland Yee and his codefendants pleaded not guilty Tuesday to charges of political corruption, gun-running and other crimes financed by payoffs from undercover agents, a lawyer for one defendant accused the FBI of entrapment and racism.
"The government created the crime, the government financed the crime, and the government ensnared my client," Tony Serra, lawyer for Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow, told reporters after 21 defendants were arraigned in federal court. "We will put the government rightfully on trial."
Chow, a Chinatown gang leader, was released from federal prison in 2003 after a racketeering sentence and promised to turn his life around. As leader of an association called the Ghee Kung Tong, or Chinese freemasons, he has been honored by Sen. Dianne Feinstein and San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee for his work with troubled youth.
5-year investigation
But an FBI affidavit last month said Chow was at the center of a five-year corruption investigation that began in Chinatown and led to Keith Jackson, an associate of Chow's and a consultant to Yee, and ultimately to the now-suspended state senator.
Chow is charged with laundering $2.3 million - some from drug sales, some from federal agents posing as criminals - and with selling stolen liquor and cigarettes. Yee is charged with conspiring with Jackson to accept $62,600 in bribes from agents in exchange for political favors - including a proclamation honoring Chow's association - and for agreeing to import illegal firearms through another federal agent.
Jackson, a former San Francisco school board president, faces additional charges of drug trafficking and arranging a purported murder-for-hire plot. He pleaded not guilty Tuesday and is free on a $250,000 bond.
Yee, a San Francisco Democrat who dropped out of the race for California secretary of state after his arrest March 26, is free on a $500,000 bond.
'Unadulterated racism'
Chow is being held without bail. Serra, one of three volunteer attorneys who took over Chow's case Friday after a grand jury indictment was unsealed, said he will enter a not-guilty plea for Chow next week and seek his release on bail in May.
The FBI affidavit said Chow told an agent he had approved crimes by other members of his association while keeping his own hands clean. But the affidavit did not quote Chow as admitting any wrongdoing, and Serra said there was no evidence against him.
"They wanted him to open a restaurant, like the Mafia does, to process cash and launder it. He refused," the veteran defense lawyer said.
The investigation was fueled, he contended, by "unadulterated racism," an effort to show that "Chinese gangsters ... control Chinatown."
"It's a bunch of baloney," Serra said, calling the impending trial "the best antigovernment case I've seen in maybe a decade."
Bob Egelko has been a reporter since June 1970. He spent 30 years with the Associated Press, covering news, politics and occasionally sports in Los Angeles, San Diego and Sacramento, and legal affairs in San Francisco from 1984 onward. He worked for the San Francisco Examiner for five months in 2000, then joined The Chronicle in November 2000.
His beat includes state and federal courts in California, the Supreme Court and the State Bar. He has a law degree from McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento and is a member of the bar. Coverage has included the passage of Proposition 13 in 1978, the appointment of Rose Bird to the state Supreme Court and her removal by the voters, the death penalty in California and the battles over gay rights and same-sex marriage.
https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Ca-Sen-Leland-Yee-and-co-defendant-plead-not-5385990.php
News / Crime
Suspended California state Sen. Leland Yee (left) and attorney James Lassart (right) leave the Phillip Burton Federal Building and United States Courthouse after Yee's arraignment on Tuesday, April 8, 2014, in San Francisco, Calif.
Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @egelko
