CrimeWatch

OAKLAND (BCN) ― An important witness was found in contempt of court Friday for refusing to testify in the preliminary hearing for Your Black Muslim Bakery leader Yusuf Bey IV and three associates on charges that they kidnapped and tortured two women in Oakland last May 17.

However, Judge Eric Labowitz, a visiting judge presiding over the hearing in Alameda County Superior Court, didn't throw 27-year-old Khalil Raheem in jail Friday and instead ordered him to return to court next Tuesday to be sentenced.

Prosecutor Scott Patton, who urged Labowitz to find Raheem in contempt, said outside court that he thinks Raheem will be jailed on Tuesday if he continues to refuse to testify against Bey, 22, and co-defendants Yusuf Bey V, 21, who is the bakery leader's half-brother, Tamon Halfin, 21, and Richard Lewis, 23.

"The court system can't work if witnesses decide not to testify and there aren't any consequences," Patton said.

Dressed in blue jeans and a white sweatshirt, Raheem showed up to court late on Friday and then refused to acknowledge that he even knows Yusuf Bey IV, even though Raheem used to work at the bakery, which was controlled by Bey's family until it shut down last year after a long series of legal and financial problems.

Witness intimidation has been an ongoing issue in the hearing.

When the hearing began on Jan. 24, Patton asked that an Oakland police officer be allowed to testify under an assumed name because the defendants, in conversations that were secretly recorded by policy, threatened to kill the officer, saying "they have some crazy hitters out there who will knock someone off."

Patton said at that time, "Rarely has there been such blatant witness intimidation." He also asked that the identity of the alleged victims be protected.

Yusuf Bey IV and the three other defendants are accused of abducting the two women from a bingo parlor in East Oakland the night of May 17 and taking them to a house in another part of Oakland where one of the women allegedly was beaten, tortured and asked for money.

However, the two women managed to escape after police happened to drive by the house and investigate what was going on and the suspects fled.

Authorities arrested and charged the defendants after cell phone records and other evidence allegedly connected them to the incident.

If they're convicted, the five remaining defendants face life in prison without the possibility of parole for aggravated kidnapping for ransom and extortion and an additional term of life with the possibility of parole for kidnapping to commit robbery.

A fifth defendant in the case, 19-year-old Joshua Bey, the half-brother of both Yusuf IV and Yusuf V, also faced a possible life in prison term, but on Jan. 29 prosecutors allowed him to plead guilty last Tuesday to a single count of simple kidnapping and receive a three-year sentence in return for testifying against the other men at the preliminary hearing and any subsequent trials.

According to Patton, the remaining charges against Joshua Bey are still pending and will only be dismissed if he testifies truthfully.

Joshua Bey first took the witness stand on Feb. 1 and testified all day that day as well as all day Thursday and half a day today.

In his testimony Thursday and today, Bey said he didn't believe that Yusuf Bey IV planned the kidnapping and torture incident because it wasn't run smoothly.

"It was not like the movies," Bey said. "Most of the kidnapping you see on TV was nothing like what we did."

Bey also admitted that he initially lied to Oakland police and made up a story about his car being stolen, but he said he did so only because Yusuf Bey IV told him to.

Bey said he didn't tell police about the kidnapping incident because "I just wanted to forget about it" and "because nobody got hurt."

Patton offered Raheem immunity from prosecution in the kidnapping case and Labowitz granted that request.

Patton said the only possible charges against Raheem would have been being an accessory after the fact and filing a false police report.

Patton said he doesn't believe that Raheem was involved in the kidnapping but drove some of the suspects around after Yusuf Bey IV called him late in the evening of May 17 and said they needed a ride.

Raheem, Yusuf Bey IV and two other bakery associates are scheduled to appear together in court Tuesday in a separate high-profile case in which they are accused of vandalizing two West Oakland liquor stores on Nov. 23, 2005.

They're charged with multiple counts of felony vandalism, false imprisonment and hate crimes.

Initially, a total of eight adult defendants, plus one juvenile, were charged in connection with extensive vandalism at the New York Market at 3446 Market St. and the San Pablo Liquor Store at 2363 San Pablo Ave.

The hate crime allegations against the defendants stem from allegations that they asked the clerks at the liquor stores why a Muslim-owned business would sell liquor when it's against the teachings of Islam to do so.

Halfin and another bakery associate, James Watts, pleaded no contest to felony vandalism in 2006 and were sentenced to five years' probation. Charges were dropped against two other defendants because of a lack of evidence.

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