A federal grand jury in San Francisco has issued a revised indictment against state Sen. Leland Yee, who was first charged in March with corruption and arms-trafficking. Among the new allegations: Yee and an accomplice attempted to extort money from an unnamed National Football League team owner in exchange for a vote on pending legislation.
The revised indictment (embedded below) recasts the case against the veteran legislator as a conspiracy in which he and San Francisco political consultant Keith Jackson allegedly used the senator's political committees as a racketeering operation that engaged in bribery, extortion and money-laundering. The document refers to the alleged Yee-Jackson operation as "The Campaign."
The indictment includes the federal charges announced March 26, the day Yee was arrested in connection with an FBI investigation targeting reputed Chinatown gang leader Raymond Chow. Yee pleaded not guilty to the charges, which accused him of trading favors for donations to his 2011 campaign for mayor of San Francisco and 2014 campaign for California and also alleged he had agreed to facilitate arms purchases by an undercover FBI employee.
But the new charges also allege that Yee and Jackson conspired to extract a payment from the owner of "NFL Team A" in exchange for supporting AB 1309, a worker's compensation bill that would benefit pro sports franchises.
The revised indictment says that Yee and Jackson conspired to extort a payment after an undercover FBI employee identifed as "UCE 4180" told them he knew the owner of the unidentified Team A.