Raymond ‘Shrimp Boy’ Chow found guilty



less In this image provided by Jen Siska, Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow, is seen posing for a portrait in San Francisco in July 2007. Investigators say Chow is the leader of one of the most powerful Asian gangs in North America. Chow's gang is said to have lured state Sen. Leland Yee into its clutches through money and campaign contributions in exchange for legislative help, as Yee sought to build his campaign coffers to run for California secretary of state. Yee and Chow were both arraigned on federal gun and corruption charges on Wednesday, March 26, 2014. In this image provided by Jen Siska, Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow, is seen posing for a portrait in San Francisco in July 2007. Investigators say Chow is the leader of one of the most powerful Asian gangs in ... more Photo: Jen Siska, Associated Press Photo: Jen Siska, Associated Press Image 1 of / 34 Caption Close Raymond ‘Shrimp Boy’ Chow found guilty 1 / 34 Back to Gallery

Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow said he was a changed man after his last prison sentence for racketeering in Chinatown more than a decade ago. But jurors heard an undercover FBI agent, backed by tape recordings, describe paying Chow for illegal transactions with his underlings. And they heard former cohorts saying Chow had ordered two murders.

On Friday, after 2½ days of deliberations, the federal court jury in San Francisco found Chow guilty on all charges: conspiracy to operate a century-old community organization as a racketeering enterprise, murdering its previous leader, conspiring to try to murder another rival, five counts of dealing in stolen liquor and cigarettes, and 154 counts of money-laundering.

It was vindication for a five-year undercover federal operation that had already netted another big fish, former state Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, one of 28 defendants indicted along with Chow in 2014.

Agents posing as shady campaign contributors contacted Yee through Keith Jackson, a former San Francisco school board president who had ties to Chow’s organization. In July, Yee and Jackson pleaded guilty to racketeering and admitted that the legislator, with Jackson’s help, had accepted bribes in exchange for promises of political favors and illegally importing firearms. Their sentencing is scheduled Feb. 10.

Chow, 56, is to be sentenced March 23, and faces a mandatory life term in prison for Leung’s murder. His lawyers said he would appeal.

“I put the blame on jurors accepting the word of snitches with no integrity and no credibility,” defense attorney J. Tony Serra told reporters, referring to five co-defendants who reached plea agreements with prosecutors to testify against Chow. “This is snitch heaven. We feel disgusted.”

‘He was not unnerved’

He said Chow remained calm after U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer read the verdicts and polled the 12 jurors, who unanimously confirmed them. “He smiled ... he was almost Buddhistically accepting,” Serra said. “He was not unnerved.”

David Johnson, chief of the FBI office in San Francisco, said in a statement that the verdict “represents a just and final end to Mr. Chow’s long-running and deadly criminal career.”

Jurors declined to speak to a reporter before leaving the courthouse.

The jury evidently credited the testimony of undercover agents led by “Dave Jordan,” the alias used by an agent, who posed as an East Coast businessman with mob ties and as a devoted admirer of Chow, during three years of secretly recorded conversations. Other clandestine recordings, in which Chow appeared to express hostility to rivals Allen Leung and Jim Tat Kong, bolstered his co-defendants’ testimony that he had ordered their murders,

“If you have tapes that are perfectly consistent with informant testimony, then juries convict a great deal of the time,” said Robert Weisberg, a Stanford law professor and co-director of the Stanford Criminal Justice Center. He said he was not surprised by the verdict and expects it to be upheld on appeal.

The investigation focused on the inner workings of the Ghee Kung Tong, a long-established Chinatown “brotherhood” that prosecutors said had become a front for crime and corruption under Chow’s direction.

Chow became the tong’s leader after Leung was shot to death in February 2006 by a still-unidentified gunman at Leung’s import-export business in Chinatown.

A self-described gangster for much of his life, Chow was imprisoned in 1993 for racketeering and won early release a decade later for testifying against a gang leader. He testified last month that he had reflected on his past during his time in prison and promised himself, while meditating on a beach after his release, to live a crime-free life.

He began counseling troubled youths in minority communities and later won praise from the likes of Mayor Ed Lee and Sen. Dianne Feinstein. But prosecutors said Chow all the while was secretly plotting to take over the Ghee Kung Tong and bringing in longtime followers to run a criminal organization.

Murder charges added

Prosecutors initially charged Chow with racketeering. The murder charges were added in October after prosecutors secured guilty pleas from two co-defendants who agreed to testify in exchange for possible reductions in their sentences. One man, Kongphat Chanthavong, said he heard Chow order Leung’s murder during a feud between the two men over a loan Chow wanted from the organization.

Chow was also implicated by the alleged driver of the getaway car. In addition, jurors heard a secretly recorded conversation in which Chow supposedly told the undercover agent in 2013 that he had once advised Leung that anyone who messed around with him, or his investments, would be “gone.”

Chow, who listened to the same recording, disputed the prosecution’s transcript and said he hadn’t referred to Leung. Defense lawyers questioned the truthfulness of the prosecution witnesses, telling the jury they were convicted criminals and liars who had been allowed to meet in jail and work on their stories.

The other homicide charge involved Kong, a onetime rival in an affiliated organization, the Hop Sing Tong, who was shot to death in Mendocino County in 2013. Andy Li, one of the co-defendants who pleaded guilty, testified that Chow had ordered him to kill Kong in 2011, then later told him that the matter had been “handled.” Jurors also heard a recording in which Chow told an agent he had withdrawn protection from Kong.

The bulk of the charges against Chow involved crimes that his subordinates allegedly agreed to commit with the agent who called himself Dave Jordan. Testifying in a courtroom closed to the public, the agent described transactions with members of the tong over a three-year period for sales of supposedly stolen liquor and cigarettes, and some drug deals, with more than $2 million of the proceeds laundered to evade government detection.

The agent said Chow introduced him to his followers and approved their transactions. Jurors heard numerous recordings in which the agent thanked Chow for “making it possible” and pressed envelopes of cash on him, which Jordan said totaled more than $60,000. Chow usually protested, saying he hadn’t done anything for the money and didn’t want to know about the details — but, the agent said, he never refused payment.

‘Love and respect’

In three days of testimony, including a lengthy and sarcastic cross-examination by Assistant U.S. Attorney William Frentzen, Chow denied ever knowingly taking payoffs for crimes. He said he had introduced the agent to more than 50 tong members, for no illicit purposes. He said he deliberately steered clear of learning about their interactions and was repeatedly assured by Jordan that the payments to him were gestures of “love and respect.”

Chow’s lawyers argued that Frentzen’s accusatory questioning went too far and put words in the mouth of a defendant whose English skills were limited, though he had an interpreter to help him. They made little headway with Breyer, and have publicly accused the veteran judge of bias.

The defense was saddled with “so many handicaps ... so much misconduct” during the trial, including Breyer’s restrictions on defense funding and his rejection of many proposed defense witnesses, attorney Curtis Briggs said after the verdict.

Bob Egelko and Steve Rubenstein are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. E-mail: begelko@sfchronicle.com; srubenstein@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @egelko; @steverubesf