Keith Jackson emerges as major figure in Calif. Sen. Yee probe

Click through to read about some of the craziest details from the Leland Yee FBI investigation:

Shrimp Boy boasted that he was offered $3 million for a book and movie deal based on his life. He rejected it on the grounds he wanted full creative control over the project. Because Shrimp Boy is an artist with integrity, thank you very much. less Click through to read about some of the craziest details from the Leland Yee FBI investigation:

Shrimp Boy boasted that he was offered $3 million for a book and movie deal based on his life. He rejected it on ... more Photo: Special To The Chronicle, SFC Photo: Special To The Chronicle, SFC Image 1 of / 15 Caption Close Keith Jackson emerges as major figure in Calif. Sen. Yee probe 1 / 15 Back to Gallery

Former San Francisco school board President Keith Jackson turns out to be more than the alleged conduit between state Sen. Leland Yee and tong leader Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow in the corruption case that has ensnared all three men.

For the past six years, he's also been a paid consultant for the developer of one of the biggest building projects in San Francisco.

Jackson, charged by the feds with gun running, drug trafficking and arranging a purported murder for hire, has been working as a foot operative for Lennar Urban's housing, retail and entertainment development at the old Hunters Point Naval Shipyard and Candlestick Point.

The development, with about a third of its 12,000 homes destined to be designated as affordable, is a cornerstone of Mayor Ed Lee's efforts to bring more housing to the city that is within reach of the non-rich. In fact, Lee delivered this year's State of the City address at the development site.

Lennar officials declined to say how much Jackson was paid for his consulting work, but we're told it was around $8,000 a month. Lennar dropped the 49-year-old Jackson when he was arrested last week.

"He didn't have tangible skills, but he knew everybody in the African American community," said Sam Singer, the PR consultant who briefly employed Jackson to work under him on the Lennar project before Jackson landed his own consulting contract with the developer in 2008. "So people hired him for his ability to open doors."

At the same time Jackson worked for Lennar, he was acting as a political bagman for Yee and as a "consultant" to Chow, according to an FBI affidavit filed in the criminal case against the three.

In a statement, Lennar told us that Jackson "did a very good job of helping educate residents of the Bayview about the shipyard project and providing feedback to us from the community."

The company added that Jackson was "one of dozens of consultants" on the $8 billion development.

Lennar wasn't Jackson's only client in the neighborhood. From about 2005 to 2008, he worked on behalf of a PR firm trying to persuade the city to allow a Home Depot to be built in the Bayview.

Evette Davis, a partner at the Berg-Davis PR firm, said Jackson was helpful in putting out political brushfires in the community, and was always "professional and a nice person to be around."

She said she was left "speechless" by his arrest.

According to the 137-page affidavit by FBI Special Agent Emmanuel Pascua, Jackson first met Chow sometime before 2010 when he was trying "to get support" for the Lennar development.

Jackson had known Yee since their days together on the school board in the 1990s, and went on to serve as Yee's fundraiser for his 2011 mayoral run and for his now-dead campaign for secretary of state.

It's interesting to note, however, that Jackson's work with Lennar apparently had no effect on Yee's votes in Sacramento as a state senator.

Records show that Yee was one of only two senators who voted against SB792, a 2009 bill backed by Lennar Urban that provided funding for Candlestick Point parks as part of a land swap clearing the way for the company's big development.

There are no records of campaign contributions to Yee from Lennar, either.

Out of tune: That Daly City dentist caught up in the Yee gun-running case turned to the state senator for help when he ran into problems getting a permit to open a karaoke club in San Mateo.

It was 2008 when Yee phoned San Mateo Police Chief Susan Manheimer - whom he had known from her days as a San Francisco police captain - to arrange a meeting for his dentist friend, Wilson Lim.

Yee said Lim wanted a better understanding of San Mateo's permit process for opening a "small room" karaoke lounge after the city had imposed rules to restrict them.

According to records, Lim had just taken over the lease for a two-story building at 3708 El Camino Real in San Mateo that had been a restaurant and entertainment venue for several years - sometimes attracting police because of unruly crowds and other problems.

Manheimer said the meeting was "all above board."

Lim, however, eventually abandoned the plan after running into problems with both the state Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control and with a downstairs restaurant tenant who had also been providing karaoke entertainment.

Lim did run a restaurant in the building at least until 2011. That year, the building's owner sued Lim, seeking to evict him and collect more than $150,000 in damages - claiming among other things that police had shut down unpermitted rooms for a karaoke bar that had hosted "acts of ill-repute and prostitution."

But Manheimer said that while police might have been called there for vice problems in the past, "we can find no record of ties to prostitution or illicit activity at that address under the control of Dr. Lim."

Last week, the 60-year-old Lim - who has no criminal record - was arrested and charged alongside Yee with conspiring to traffic internationally in firearms. Lim has not spoken about the accusation.