DOWN WITH RACISM!!! UP WITH DEMOCRACY!!!

from the Los Angeles Times

San Gabriel council deems itself judge over election results

Officials hold their own hearing — with sworn witnesses — to decide if the second-highest vote-getter should be seated because of a local-residency challenge.

April 27, 2013|By Frank Shyong, Los Angeles Times

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San Gabriel City Councilman-elect Chin Ho Liao listens to arguments during… (Don Bartletti, Los Angeles…)

San Gabriel Councilman-elect Chin Ho Liao was the second highest vote-getter in the city's March elections, but his first time on the council dais last week was as a witness under cross-examination.
The City Council voted not to seat Liao after resident Fred Paine filed a complaint alleging that Liao's true residence is outside of the city's borders. Though Liao has filed suit in Los Angeles Superior Court to contest the council's vote, the city has also created its own hearing process to determine Liao's residency.

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Many of Liao's supporters have accused the City Council of discriminating against Liao because of his race. More than 60% of San Gabriel's population is of Asian descent, and just two other council members of Asian descent have won seats since the city was incorporated in 1913.
Several reporters from Chinese-language media were among those who filled San Gabriel's rustic City Council chambers Thursday when it was transformed into a crude courtroom. Four council members became judges. A city clerk's desk briefly functioned as a makeshift witness stand, and the clerk herself swore in witnesses.
Over three days of contentious debate, attorneys presented battling explanations for Liao's changing residency status.
Liao had twice rented an apartment within city borders before running for City Council. After losing the first race in 2011, Liao returned to a home in an unincorporated neighborhood known as East San Gabriel before allegedly moving back to an apartment within the city's border.
Paine's attorney, Arnold Alvarez-Glasman, painted Liao's moves as cynical attempts to meet residency requirements for council office.
"He is merely a carpetbagger who has come in, time and time again, for the sole purpose of being seated up there next to you," Alvarez-Glasman said to the council. "This is not about politics, or ethnicity or race, or the people on the council. It's about the law."
Liao's testimony was alternately halting and emphatic as he admitted to splitting time between residences in and outside of the city borders. But he insisted that running for office was not the only reason behind the moves, pointing to deep community ties in San Gabriel. Both he and Paine are past presidents of the Rotary Club of San Gabriel, and Liao is listed on the club's website as the vice president.
"My heart is in San Gabriel. I'll live and die here," Liao said twice during testimony.
The Asian Pacific American Legal Center has represented Liao for free, calling questions about his residency "meritless" and warning that the council's actions threaten to disenfranchise Asian American voters.
Liao's attorney Nilay Vora said that Liao has always intended to move permanently to San Gabriel and argued that Liao was not simply renting apartments within city borders, that he was living in them as well.
Vora subpoenaed three neighbors who testified that they had met Liao, regularly saw his car parked at the building and heard his movements in the apartment through shared walls. Liao also submitted a receipt from a moving company and described his possessions, among other evidence.
Liao's moves, Vora argued, were partially the product of a troubled 25-year marriage.

Both Liao and his wife, Tracy Huang, admitted to "communication problems" during testimony. They slept in separate beds when they lived together, Huang said. She had no idea that Liao planned to run for office.

Is there at least ONE honest Chinaman around? Fake products, tainted foods, fake schools and now fake US Army Reserve...Jeesh

from the SGV Tribune

By Daniel Tedford, Staff Writer

Posted: 04/13/2011 08:43:45 PM PDT

Yupeng Deng, also known as David Deng, listens to his mandarin interpreter, Billy Lee, during his arraignment at Pomona Superior Court in Pomona on Wednesday, April 13, 2011. Deng faces charges for recruiting Chinese nationals for a phony Army special forces unit by promising recruits a fast-track to U.S. citizenship. Deng faces 13 counts of theft by false pretenses, manufacturing deceptive government documents and counterfeit of an official government seal. (SGVN/Staff photo by Watchara Phomicinda)

Chinese national and El Monte resident Yupeng Deng with some of the people who he recruited to his phony Army unit with promise of a path to U.S. citizenship. (Photos courtesy of FBI/DCIS)

POMONA - An El Monte man suspected of creating a phony military unit in an office in Temple City, who had recruits fitted with real army uniforms and charged them fees for service and ranks, was simply misunderstood, a defense attorney said on Wednesday.
Chinese national Yupeng Deng, also known as David Deng, is suspected of recruiting more than 100 Chinese nationals from as far away as Atlanta into a phony Army unit he led as the group's "supreme commander" by offering U.S. citizenship in exchange for service, according to Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office officials.
"I think the facts are going to bear out he wasn't counterfeiting," defense attorney Darren Cornforth said. "I am of the position that the state has one opinion ... and I think there is some misunderstanding."
Officials with the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office disagree.
"He preyed upon the aspirations of a very specific, targeted group," Deputy District Attorney Michael Yglecias said.
Prosecutors said they don't believe the unit was dangerous and was based around the immigration scam.
Deng was scheduled to be arraigned at Pomona Superior Court on Wednesday, but the hearing was postponed until May 2. Deng is being held on $500,000 bail after the District Attorney's Office requested a higher bail because they consider him a flight risk. Without the change, Deng's bail would have been $160,000, officials said.
Deng's

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lawyer said he planned to challenge the bail amount at a hearing on Friday. "I think the bail is outrageous for these types of charges," Cornforth said.
Cornforth did not provide details on his defense or how his client was allegedly misunderstood.
Deng, 51, was arrested Tuesday by Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department deputies assisting the investigation, which is being conducted by the FBI and the Department of Defense Criminal Investigative Services.
Officials first began investigating when his recruits were caught using fake military IDs trying to get out of traffic tickets with police.
He faces 13 counts of theft by false pretenses, manufacturing deceptive government documents and counterfeit of an official government seal.
If convicted, Deng faces up to eight years and four months in prison.
Deng allegedly charged recruits between $300 and $450, along with renewal fees of $120 each year, to be part of his fake unit, which he dubbed the U.S. Military Special Forces Reserve. Recruits could move up in rank if they paid higher fees, officials said. And he gave himself the title of "supreme commander" of the fake military unit, officials said.
The

Phony Army recruitment office in Temple City started by Chinese national and El Monte resident Yupeng Deng as part of an immigration scam. (Photos courtesy of FBI/DCIS)

unit began in October 2008 and was run out of Deng's office on Las Tunas Drive in Temple City, which was made to look like a legitimate Army recruitment office, complete with a fake official seal on its floor, officials said. Most of the recruits were from Los Angeles County, but there were some from as far away as San Jose and Atlanta, officials said.
"There is speculation there was more than 100 (recruits), but investigators told me they were comfortable with saying 100," Yglecias said.
The unit was supplied with real Army uniforms that could have been purchased at a surplus store or another outlet.
Deng trained the troops using mock weapons - BB guns - during the training, Yglecias said. And he taught the unit military conduct and thinking, he said.
"They were told they were indeed part of the U.S. military," Yglecias said.
Recruits also were told they could get a free pass on tickets from police and deals on airfare due to their status - promises that led to the investigation, Yglecias said.
The unit was also apparently part of a parade in Monterey Park and posed for pictures with local elected officials, prosecutors said.
Assemblyman Mike Eng was told he was in a picture with Deng, though he has not seen the photo himself. He said he has no recollection of Deng or his unit, but he was critical of the Deng's alleged actions.
"It is the worst moral implication," Eng said. "It plays on people's desire to be patriotic, to be loyal. It takes all that good cache ... and it bundles it up and prostitutes it into a cash transaction. This is a defilement of the hopes and dreams of immigrants."
Eng defended officials who may have been duped by Deng for photo opportunities.
"It is always disconcerting when people take advantage of the openness of our office," he said.
daniel.tedford@sgvn.com
626-962-8811, ext. 2730