Direct Source: http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/03/26/senator-who-crusaded-against-game-violence-arrested-on-corruptio/
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/video?id=9480734
State Sen. Leland Yee has been charged with public corruption as part of a major FBI operation spanning the Bay Area, law-enforcement sources said, casting yet another cloud of corruption over the Democratic establishment in the Legislature and torpedoing Yee's aspirations for statewide office.
Yee, D-San Francisco, highlights a series of arrests Wednesday morning that included infamous Chinatown gangster Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow, whose past includes a variety of charges including racketeering and drug crimes, sources said. Yee's exact connection to Chow, if any, was not immediately drawn.
Targets of the early-morning raids are expected to appear in federal court in San Francisco this afternoon.
The criminal complaint against Yee likely ruins his candidacy for Secretary of State, and threatens Democrats' restoration of their state Senate supermajority that already has been broken by two other lawmakers' paid leaves of absence to deal with criminal charges.
FBI agents and local police are serving arrest and search warrants throughout the Bay Area, with agents seen in San Francisco and San Mateo and Yee's Capitol office in Sacramento. One of the searches was at the San Francisco Chinatown office of the Ghee Kung Tong Free Masons and is linked to Chow's arrest.
Outside that building on Spofford Street -- a Chinatown alley between Clay and Washington streets -- FBI Special Agent Michael Gimbel would say only that "the FBI is executing numerous search warrants around the Bay Area."
San Francisco firefighters carried a heavy rotary saw into the building late Wednesday morning; neighbors said they believe there's a safe inside the building. Federal agents removed about 10 boxes of documents and several bags of material from the building at about 12:30 p.m., and the FBI left the scene soon after that.
Federal law enforcement officials have been chasing Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow for decades, branding him one of the longtime Bay Area leaders of a Hong Kong-based criminal syndicate called the Wo Hop To. Chow's criminal rap sheet dates back to 1978, and includes federal racketeering indictments that have alleged attempted murder, murder-for-hire, gun trafficking and other crimes.
Chow was originally indicted in a federal racketeering probe that targeted the alleged leader of the Chinatown gang, Peter Chong. At one point, Chow cooperated with federal law enforcement officials against Chong, who had fled to Hong Kong after being indicted on racketeering charges but was later extradited and convicted in San Francisco federal court in a case marred by setbacks and delays. Chow's original 1995 sentence of 24 years was cut to 11 years as a result of his cooperation, and he has been out of prison for 10 years.
State Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, was still gathering information and not ready to comment Wednesday morning, said his spokesman, Mark Hedlund.
Yee represents San Francisco and a portion of San Mateo County. Before becoming the first Chinese-American ever elected to the state Senate in 2006, Yee was an assemblyman from 2002 to 2006; a San Francisco supervisor from 1997 to 2002; and had been a member and president of the San Francisco Unified School District board. While in the Assembly, he was the first Asian-American to be named Speaker pro Tempore, essentially making him the chamber's second-most-powerful Democrat.
That power would have been exercised this year in Yee's run for Secretary of State against state Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Van Nuys; Democrat Derek Cressman; Republican Pete Peterson; and nonpartisan Dan Schnur.
Upon pulling his candidacy papers in February, Yee issued a news release saying it was time for a Secretary of State "who will expand access to the ballot box, make our government more transparent, and strengthen California's democracy."
"I am committed to empowering Californians so that they can guarantee fair elections, expose special interests and prevent corruption, because it's your California," Yee said at the time.
Yee campaign spokesman Joaquin Ross declined to comment Wednesday morning, saying he would have to call back.
Yee is the state's third Democratic legislator recently targeted in corruption allegations. In February, State Sen. Ron Calderon, D-Montebello, surrendered to authorities after being indicted on bribery charges. In January, state Sen. Roderick Wright, D-Inglewood, was convicted of voter fraud and perjury stemming from a 2010 indictment.
Cressman, who until last June was vice president of the nonpartisan government watchdog group Common Cause, Wednesday morning said that charges against Yee must be "a wake-up call" given other Senate Democrats' legal problems.
"We are clearly beyond the point of looking at one bad apple and instead looking at a corrupt institution in the California Senate," Cressman said. "The constant begging for campaign cash clearly has a corrosive effect on a person's soul and the only solution is to get big money out of our politics once and for all."
Schnur, a longtime GOP campaign strategist who more recently served as chairman of the state Fair Political Practices Commission and directed the University of Southern California's Unruh Institute of Politics, said news of Yee's arrest "is yet another in a series of reminders of why Californians have so little trust in their elected officials.
"My hope is that this will prompt the Legislature to take much more aggressive and meaningful action to fix a broken political system than they have been willing to do to date," Schnur said.
Yee emigrated to San Francisco from China at age 3; his father was a veteran who served in the Army and the merchant marine. Yee earned a bachelor's degree from UC Berkeley; a master's degree from San Francisco State University; and a doctorate in child psychology at the University of Hawaii. He and his wife, Maxine, have four children.
Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Hillsborough, served with Yee for several years in the Legislature but was never close to him. She said the senator is innocent until proven guilty but called the allegations "regrettable."
"It's always sad for all of us in the profession," said Speier, "to see individuals who lose sight of what the public trust is all about."[/quote]
Direct Source: http://www.mercurynews.com/crime-courts/ci_25423273/bay-area-fbi-serving-multiple-arrest-search-warrants
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