Members from the San Francisco Board of Supervisors will be meeting with the FBI in the coming week as part of an investigation into alleged corruption, gun running and other charges against suspended state Sen. Leland Yee and dozens of others.
Yee, who represented part of San Francisco and San Mateo on the state Senate before his suspension last month, previously served on the city’s Board of Supervisors between 1997 and 2002.
Yee and Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow, the leader of the Chinatown-based Chee Kung Tong organization, were among 29 people named in an April 3 grand jury indictment.
Judson True, legislative aide for Supervisor David Chiu, said that last week the FBI called the board’s main phone line and requested “voluntary informal” meetings with each supervisor.
Chiu, who is president of the board, will set aside about 45 minutes by the end of this week to discuss any relevant information and background that investigators may need in the case, True said.
True said Chiu is “happy to be helpful in the case,” but to his knowledge the supervisor is not in any way involved with the case.
Other members of the board of supervisors were asked to meet with FBI agents as well.
Each office is scheduling those meetings separately.
Yee is accused of six counts of defrauding citizens of his honest services by allegedly soliciting and taking campaign contributions in exchange for political favors for donors and one count of conspiring to do so. The purported donors were undercover FBI agents.
He is out on a $500,000 bail bond following his arrest at his San Francisco home on March 26.
The senator is also accused of conspiring with San Francisco resident Brandon Jackson, 28, and Daly City dentist Wilson Lim to engage in international gun trafficking.
Chow, 54, of San Francisco, pleaded not guilty today before U.S. Magistrate Nandor Vadas to charges not directly related to the charges against Yee.
Chow is accused of money laundering, conspiring to traffic in contraband cigarettes, and conspiring to transport the stolen cigarettes across state lines.
Also pleading not guilty today were Jackson and sports agent Marlon Sullivan, 29, of Oakland, who were arrested on March 27 in Connecticut and New Jersey. They both made their first appearance in federal court in San Francisco today.
Jackson and Sullivan are accused of joining Jackson’s father, former San Francisco school board president Keith Jackson, in an alleged murder-for-hire plot to kill a fictitious victim for $25,000. The murder was allegedly requested by an undercover FBI agent who was posing as a Mafia member.
Sasha Lekach/Julia Cheever, Bay City News
