Posted on 08/17/2004 6:29:19 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
She was a grassroots activist in San Francisco's Chinese American community who transformed herself into a City Hall insider through her prowess as a political fund-raiser.
An immigrant who became a multimillionaire from real estate deals on the city's west side, she contributed $274,712 to the campaigns of Mayor Willie Brown, Secretary of State Kevin Shelley and many other politicians while raising tens of thousands more to benefit the causes and candidates she favored.
In response to her aggressive fund raising, critics say, the politicians provided many benefits to Julie Lee, 57, a Sunset District real estate agent and president of the city's Housing Authority Commission:
Insider access at City Hall. Fast-track approval of her zoning and building permits. Grants and contracts totaling $698,998 for a new Sunset District community center she promoted but never built. Government jobs for her son, Andrew, a former rapper whom Lee promoted as a budding political star.
Now, the aggressive fund raising that made Lee a major player in San Francisco politics is the focus of overlapping federal and state corruption investigations.
After disclosures in The Chronicle, the FBI raided Lee's office last week, probing whether $125,000 that was donated to Shelley during his 2002 campaign had been illegally diverted from a state grant to Lee's nonprofit.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Interesting...
The house of cards is beginning to crumble.
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