The government has evidence that a man charged in a money laundering and corruption probe centered in San Francisco's Chinatown also arranged a 2006 slaying, a federal prosecutor said Monday.
Assistant U.S. Attorney William Frenzen told a judge that Raymond "Shrimp Boy'' Chow solicited someone to kill Allen Leung, the previous leader of the Chinese fraternal group known as the Ghee Kung Tong, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. Frenzen also said there was evidence that Chow tried to recruit someone to kill a member of a San Francisco street gang.
Chow has not been charged with either of the slayings and has pleaded not guilty to racketeering and money laundering charges.
Chow, the elected "dragonhead'' of the Ghee Kung Tong, was arrested after a years-long investigation that also ensnared state Sen. Leland Yee. The FBI alleges Ghee Kung Tong was a racketeering enterprise, and that undercover agents laundered $2.6 million in cash from illegal bookmaking through the organization.
Yee pleaded guilty to racketeering in July and is scheduled to be sentenced in December.
Frenzen said prosecutors should be able to introduce evidence of the homicides to show how Chow ran the Ghee Kung Tong, the Chronicle reported.
"This was how he asserted power,'' Frenzen said.
Local
Chow's attorney, Curtis Briggs, disputed that prosecutors had any evidence linking his client to the slayings, calling the allegations a "farce.''
The judge did not immediately rule on whether the homicides could be admitted as evidence. Chow is scheduled to go on trial in November.
