Jan 24, 2008 12:47 pm US/Pacific
Hearing Begins In Black Muslim Bakery Kidnap Case
OAKLAND (BCN) ―
A preliminary hearing began Thursday for Your Black Muslim Bakery leader Yusef Bey IV and four associates on charges that they kidnapped and tortured two women in Oakland last May.
According to prosecutors and Oakland police, the suspects in the May 17 incident allegedly kidnapped a mother and daughter as the women drove home from a bingo hall in East Oakland. The suspects allegedly believed the women could reveal where a local drug dealer kept his money.
The suspects pretended to be police officers and used flashing lights on their car, which was a decommissioned police cruiser, to get the women to pull over, according to a declaration filed in court by Oakland police Officer Jesse Grant.
The women were driven to an abandoned home in Oakland where the daughter was assaulted, according to police.
The suspects fled when an Oakland police officer saw the modified car and heard the daughter's screams. The officer then rescued the two women.
Bey, 21, and associates Joshua Bey, 20, and Tamon Halfin, 21, were
arrested Aug. 3, when Oakland police and other agencies conducted a massive raid at Your Black Muslim Bakery headquarters in Oakland. Two other suspects, Yusef Bey V, who is the half-brother of Yusef Bey IV and Joshua Bey, and Richard Lewis, a former football star at Mission High School in San Francisco, were arrested and charged at later dates.
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