Senator is accused of conspiring to illegally import firearms
By Paul Elias and Sudhin Thanawala
Associated Press
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A state senator who authored gun control legislation asked for campaign donations in exchange for introducing an undercover FBI agent to an arms trafficker, according to court documents.
The allegations against Sen. Leland Yee were outlined in an FBI criminal complaint that names 25 other defendants, including Raymond Chow, a onetime gang leader with ties to San Francisco’s Chinatown known as “Shrimp Boy,” and Keith Jackson, Yee’s campaign aide. The affidavit accuses Yee of conspiracy to deal firearms without a license and to illegally import firearms.
Yee is also accused of accepting tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions and cash payments to provide introductions, help a client get a contract and influence legislation. He or members of his campaign staff accepted at least $42,800 in cash or campaign contributions from undercover FBI agents in exchange for carrying out the agents’ specific requests, the court documents allege.
Investigators said in documents released Wednesday that Yee discussed helping the agent get weapons worth $500,000 to $2.5 million, including shoulder-fired missiles, and explained the entire process of acquiring them from a Muslim separatist group in the Philippines to bringing them to the U.S., according to an affidavit by FBI agent Emmanuel V. Pascua.
Yee said he was unhappy with his life and told the agent he wanted to hide out in the Philippines, the document said. “There’s a part of me that wants to be like you,” he told the undercover agent. “You know how I’m going to be like you? Just be a free agent there.”
The introduction with the trafficker took place at a San Francisco restaurant earlier this month, according to the documents. Yee said he wouldn’t go to the Philippines until November.
“Once things start to move, it’s going to attract attention. We just got to be extra-extra careful,” he said, according to court documents.
Chow and Yee were arrested Wednesday during a series of raids in Sacramento and the San Francisco Bay Area.
Yee was released from custody shortly before 7 p.m. on a $500,000 unsecured bond. He left the federal courthouse in San Francisco without comment.
His lawyer, Paul DeMeester, said Lee plans to plead not guilty but declined to discuss the case in detail, saying it’s complex. The complaint is 137 pages.
“The top priority was to get the senator released, and we were able to accomplish that,” DeMeester said. “The future will hold a lot of work facing this case.”
Jackson, a former San Francisco school board president and well-known political consultant who raised money for Yee’s unsuccessful mayoral run in 2011 and his current bid for secretary of state, remained in custody.
Jackson, 49, did not enter a plea Wednesday as the FBI accused him of being involved in a murder-for-hire scheme and trafficking guns and drugs. He was denied bail and is due back in court Monday.
Yee was shackled at the ankles when he appeared in court Wednesday afternoon with 19 other defendants. His demeanor was downcast, and he looked nervously into the packed gallery.
Yee was charged with six counts of depriving the public of honest services and one count of conspiracy to traffic in guns without a license. If convicted on all the counts, he faces up to 125 years in prison.
Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, flanked by 14 other Democratic senators at a news conference in his Capitol office, called on Yee to resign from the Senate or face suspension.
“Don’t burden your colleagues and this great institution with your troubles. Leave,” Steinberg said.
According to court documents, Yee performed “official acts” in exchange for donations from undercover FBI agents, as he sought to dig himself out of a $70,000 debt incurred during a failed San Francisco mayoral bid in 2011.
Yee’s arrest came as a shock to Chinese-Americans who see the senator as a pioneering leader in the community and a mainstay of San Francisco politics, said David Lee, director of the Chinese American Voters Education Committee.
