Local News

OAKLAND (CBS 5 / AP / BCN) ― An Alameda County grand jury Wednesday indicted the former leader of the now-defunct Your Black Muslim Bakery group in connection with the 2007 killing of an Oakland journalist who was shot as he walked to work.

Prosecutors said the indictment handed down accused 23-year-old Yusuf Bey IV of ordering three murders in the summer of 2007, including that of Oakland Post newspaper editor Chauncey Bailey. The indictment also named another bakery associate in the killings.

The indictment followed testimony before the grand jury last week by Devaughndre Broussard, a former bakery handyman who earlier was charged with murder in the Bailey shooting.

Your Black Muslim Bakery was an Oakland-based community organization founded in the 1960s to peddle healthy baked goods, provide a haven for Oakland's poor and help ex-criminals get their lives back together.

But the bakery ran into financial and other problems. Bailey had been investigating the group's finances at the time of his death.

Wednesday's indictment was unsealed at a brief afternoon hearing, which was closed to the press and public, before Superior Court Presiding Judge Yolanda Northridge.

After the hearing, Deputy District Attorney Chris Lamiero said the grand jury indicted Bey for the deaths of Bailey, 57, on Aug. 2, 2007, 31-year-old Odell Roberson Jr. on July 8, 2007, and 36-year-old Michael Wills on July 12, 2007.

The indictment included a special circumstance allegation that Bey committed multiple murders. But Lamiero said a decision about whether prosecutors will seek the death penalty for Bey won't be made until later.

Roberson was the uncle of Alfonza Phillips, who ultimately was convicted of killing Bey's older brother, 23-year-old Antar Bey, in a botched robbery at the Union 76 gas station at 55th Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Way on Oct. 25, 2005.

Lamiero said the grand jury also indicted bakery associate Antoine Mackey for all three murders and Broussard for the murders of Bailey and Roberson. Mackey and Broussard also face special circumstance clauses for multiple murder, he said.

In issuing the indictment, the grand jury relied in part on testimony by Broussard, who also gave a lengthy statement to prosecutors on March 23 and 24. In his statement, Broussard admitted that he killed both Bailey and Roberson but said he did so at Bey's direction.

Broussard said Bey wanted him to kill Bailey because Bey, the son of the bakery's late founder, was upset about an article that Bailey was planning to write about the bakery's financial problems. Shortly after Bailey was killed, the bakery became bankrupt and went out of business.

Broussard said he wasn't involved in Wills' death but said Bey and Mackey talked to him about it immediately afterward.

Broussard's attorney, LeRue Grim, said his client agreed to plead guilty to two counts of voluntary manslaughter for the deaths of Bailey and Roberson.

Grim said the plea agreement in place called for Broussard to get a 25-year state prison sentence if he testifies truthfully against Bey and Mackey.
 
Lamiero declined comment on any plea deals, but said Bey and Mackey were scheduled to be arraigned May 6 and Broussard was scheduled to be arraigned May 7.
 
Bey was arrested the day after Bailey's death in an unrelated kidnapping and torture case and remained jailed in that case. 

At a separate hearing on Wednesday, Alameda County Superior Court Judge Joseph Hurley ordered Bey to stand trial on the charges that he and four bakery associates kidnapped and tortured two women in Oakland on May 17, 2007, in an effort to get money from them.

His lawyer, Anne Beles, said she had not been formally notified of the murder indictments Wednesday. She said "all charges will be fought vigorously," but declined further comment.

Lamiero also declined to speak about the murder case against Bey in detail Wednesday but he added, "We're always glad when we think we're doing the right thing."

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