Whipped Cream Difficulties

Mike the Musicologist forwarded an amusing article from the Sacramento Bee about indicted California Democratic State Senator Leland “Uncle” Yee.

Among other things, “Uncle” used campaign funds for his trips to the Philippines, where he allegedly tried to arrange his illegal gun deals:

“Senator Yee said when he arrived, he was surrounded by numerous armed guards carrying automatic rifles,” the affidavit said. “Senator Yee advised the Philippines was a very corrupt country and (the agent) needed to be prepared to pay people at every level during the lifecycle of the deal. Senator Yee reiterated he had been to Mindanao and had an opportunity to shoot some of the weapons discussed with (the agent.)”

Also interesting: “Uncle” spent a total of $62,000 in campaign funds at the New Asia restaurant in San Francisco. I believe this is the New Asia in question.

Last week’s criminal complaint mentions the restaurant as the venue for many events hosted by Chee Kung Tong, an alleged criminal group headed by Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow, who also was arrested.

Yeah, you were waiting for “Shrimp Boy” to show up, weren’t you? And by the way, the owner of New Asia is charged with receiving and transporting stolen property: specifically, 15 cases of Johnnie Walker Blue Label.

Edited to add: I was finishing up this post as I was coming off my lunch hour, so I pushed research duties to Mike the Musicologist. For those of you (like me) who aren’t that up on your Johnnie Walker label colors, Blue is at the highest end of the Walker line in regular production (as opposed to the occasional special edition/one off runs). Wikipedia says it goes for $200 – $300 a bottle, but the prices Mike and I turned up were more like $1,000 for a case (six bottles). So we’re talking $15,000 worth of blended Scotch. Not exactly something to sneeze at, for sure, but it seems kind of petty compared to “Tell me about the rockets, Leland!” and contract killers.

Plus, you know, this probably puts New Asia’s liquor license in danger. And what’s a liquor license in San Francisco worth? I bet a lot more than $15K.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 4th, 2014 at 2:00 pm and is filed under California Über Alles, Clippings, Guns, Law, Leland "Uncle" Yee. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.