Chow court documents allege corruption by Mayor Lee, others
SAN FRANCISCO (KTVU) -- Allegations of corruption and bribery are being aimed at San Francisco Mayor and other city officials in court documents related to the Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow case that were filed Tuesday.
The allegations were outlined in a new motion to dismiss the criminal racketeering charges against Chow.
Chow, the elected "dragonhead" of the Chinese fraternal group known as the Ghee Kung Tong, was arrested after a multiyear investigation by the FBI that also ensnared former state Sen. Leland Yee.
The FBI alleges the association was a racketeering enterprise and that undercover agents laundered $2.6 million in cash from illegal bookmaking through the organization.
Chow has pleaded not guilty to money laundering and other charges. Yee pleaded guilty to racketeering last month.
Attorneys representing Chow are asking a judge that the indictment filed against their client be dismissed because of politically tainted selective prosecution. In the documents, they claim people from state, local and federal government are part of a clique in California politics.
The attorney's refer to a certain in-crowd in San Francisco that Chow isn't part of and that's why they feel he's being targeted. In the motion there are claims attacking several political leaders including U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag and Mayor Lee.
The documents say "those who skirted charges were part of the political in-crowd; individuals who were all at one time appointed, connected, extremely closely associated with Melinda Haag" and others.
When it comes to Mayor Lee, Chow's attorneys make specific claims that Lee allegedly took bribes and got away with it because of his political position.
When speaking of Lee the documents state he "took over $20,000 from federal agents in his first four months in office and hit the ground running as mayor with an enormous amount of reported gifts including paid trips across the world."
KTVU contacted Lee's communications director for his campaign. He released a statement that said, "There's absolutely nothing in today's filing by Raymond chow's attorneys that suggests that mayor lee himself or his 2011 campaign did anything wrong or inappropriate. If and when the Mayor's campaign receives specific information from the government about any questionable contributions, we will take immediate and appropriate actions."
KTVU looked through the footnotes and exhibits that are currently on file with the court in support of the motion for Chow. From what was available, there wasn't anything that appears to directly support bribery against Mayor Lee.
KTVU put in calls to Chow's attorney in hopes of getting more information and clarification about these accusations and didn't hear back as of yet.
The motion is scheduled to go before a judge later this month.
San Francisco Supervisor London Breed, Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom and the head of San Francisco's chapter of the NAACP Amos Brown were also named in the motion. Again, with those people, KTVU didn't see anything in the papers that pointed to any obvious wrong doing.