‘Shrimp Boy’ Sues San Francisco Mayor

SAN FRANCISCO (CN) - Chinatown gangster Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow sued San Francisco and its Mayor Edwin Lee on Thursday, demanding records that Chow claims will show that Lee took a $20,000 bribe from the same undercover federal agent who snared state Sen. Leland Yee.

Chow claims in Superior Court that his concerns about the "openness and transparency in the public, political, and campaign-related affairs" of San Francisco prompted the lawsuit.

If given a "full opportunity to conduct discovery," Chow says, he will reveal that the mayor took a $500 bribe from Michael Anthony King, which was laundered through a mayoral campaign fund as a "contribution."

King made a follow-up payment of $19,500 "in exchange for certain political favors to be performed by Lee," according to the complaint.

"Lee did something illegal and wants to hide it, for when faced with the request for public records that is the subject of this lawsuit he knowingly and falsely denied the existence of responsive records," Chow says in the complaint.

Chow says he emailed a request for records from the City and County of San Francisco, related to any exchange of money between a public official and someone named King or the like, or between a public official and an employee or agent of the FBI.

He claims that Lee and the city responded: "This office does not have any documents."

The undercover agent named King paid bribes to now-suspended state Sen. Leland Yee, according to the lawsuit.

Chow, Yee and 27 other defendants were indicted in March by a grand jury after a 5-year FBI investigation of the Ghee Kung Tong, a Chinese-American organization headed by Chow. An FBI agent posing as a member of the Mafia allegedly used Chow's connections to launder money he attributed to Chow as gambling and drug proceeds.

Chow has pleaded not guilty to charges of racketeering, money laundering and conspiracy to traffic in contraband cigarettes.

Yee has denied his charges too, which include wire fraud and conspiracy to deal in firearms.

Yee is accused of offering to help undercover FBI agents buy assault weapons from the suspected terrorist group Moro Islamic Liberation Front in the Philippines, and doing political favors and voting on certain legislative bills in exchange for campaign donations.

The complaint from Chow and co-plaintiff Alfred Scolari claims that Lee will not respond to the request for public records about any bribes for a reason.

"He denied their existence because he did not want the public to learn that in fact he had illegally accepted money from a federal undercover agent known as UCE4773," the complaint states.

Chow claims that the undercover agent identified in a federal affidavit as "UCE4773" is Michael King.

Chow's request for records should have generated at least three hits for contributions, the complaint says, since three people named King appear in campaign-finance disclosure documents filed on behalf of "Ed Lee for Mayor 2011."

Chow asks the court to order Lee and San Francisco to comply with the California Public Records Act and the California Constitution by handing over the documents.

Fellow indictee and former San Francisco school board president Keith Jackson has claimed that agent "UCE4773" first targeted him to get to Yee. Jackson has denied his own charges of murder for hire, wire fraud, and dealing guns and narcotics.

Chow and Scolari are represented by Cory Briggs, of Upland.

Chow has a long criminal record and has served years in prison.

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