‘Shrimp Boy’ gets life in prison for murder, corruption in San Francisco case

Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow, sentenced to life in prison for racketeering and murder as the leader of a venerable Chinatown community organization, said Thursday he was an innocent victim of dishonest prosecutors, a biased judge and incompetent defense attorneys.

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“You got the wrong man,” Chow, 56, said in a discourse in San Francisco federal court that lasted more than an hour before a judge pronounced his sentence. “I’m not apologizing (for) a crime I had nothing to do with.”

Chow, the lead prosecutor responded, was only showing his tendency to blame others for his wrongdoing. And U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer said the evidence presented during an eight-week trial amply proved Chow’s guilt.

A federal court jury convicted Chow in January of conspiring to operate his organization, the Ghee Kung Tong, as a racketeering enterprise and of ordering the murder of its previous leader, Allen Leung, in 2006.

Chow was also convicted of conspiring unsuccessfully to murder another rival, Jim Tat Kong, who was later shot to death in 2013. Jurors additionally found him guilty of five counts of dealing in stolen liquor and cigarettes, and of 154 counts of money-laundering through members of his organization who testified that they had his approval.