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When an attorney for one of the defendants in the killings of Oakland newspaper editor Chauncey Bailey and two other men tried to get the murder trial moved out of Alameda County last year, he compared his client to Nazi lieutenant Hermann Goering. Attorney Gary Sirbu argued that trying Antoine Mackey next to Yusuf Bey IV, the former leader of Your Black Muslim Bakery accused of having ordered the killings, would be like trying Goering next to Adolf Hitler. The publicity surrounding the now-defunct black empowerment group is that widespread, and the bakery's former leader is that notorious, Sirbu said....

OAKLAND -- Lawyers wrapped up months of pretrial wrangling in the prosecution of two men charged with murdering journalist Chauncey Bailey and two others Monday, all but assuring that opening statements will begin after the seating of a jury March 21. Superior Court Judge Thomas Reardon scheduled no further court dates until 12 jurors and five alternates are selected from a pool of 109 people in two weeks. The defendants, former Your Black Muslim Bakery leader Yusuf Bey IV and Antoine Mackey, both 25, lost motions Monday as Reardon steered the case forward after denying a change of venue motion...

OAKLAND -- A former Your Black Muslim Bakery associate suspected in a plot to kill witnesses in the Chauncey Bailey murder case appeared in court Monday on charges that he fired into an inhabited building in 2009. Gary Popoff, 42, was charged last month with shooting into a building in the 5800 block of San Pablo Avenue -- not far from where the bakery's headquarters once stood. He was also charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm. Sources close to the investigation say Popoff was arrested in November 2009 with a gun, which later was matched to...

OAKLAND -- Lawyer Lorna Patton Brown is resigning from the practice of law after being implicated in a plot by her former client, Yusuf Bey IV, to kill witnesses in the Chauncey Bailey murder case, sources said Wednesday. Brown, 64, smuggled a hit list out of jail in March that named witnesses her client wanted killed to prevent their testimony in his upcoming trial, according to court papers. It was unclear when her resignation will take effect. Brown did not return multiple messages Wednesday. "I don't think (the resignation) is a matter of public importance," Spencer Strellis, an attorney who...

OAKLAND -- A judge Friday rejected a request that he rule immediately on a change of venue motion in the murder case of journalist Chauncey Bailey and two other men. Lawyers for accused killers Yusuf Bey IV and Antoine Mackey asked Superior Court Judge Thomas Reardon to decide right away if their trial should be moved to Southern California so they would have time to appeal if Reardon said no. Reardon ruled last week that he would not determine if the trial had to be moved until after jury selection. He reiterated that position Friday, saying the request cut to...

OAKLAND -- The murder trial of two men accused in the murder of journalist Chauncey Bailey will remain in Alameda County -- for now. Superior Court Judge Thomas Reardon issued a one-sentence ruling late Tuesday that he will take the case through jury selection here while keeping open the possibility of moving it elsewhere if a fair panel cannot be seated. "It is hereby ordered that ruling on defendants' motion for change of venue is deferred pending voir dire (jury selection) in this matter," Reardon wrote. Lawyers for co-defendants Yusuf Bey IV and Antoine Mackey. both 24, said during a...

OAKLAND -- Yusuf Bey IV and Antoine Mackey are entitled to have their triple murder trial moved out of Alameda County because 70 percent of potential jurors familiar with charges against them think they are definitely or probably guilty, an expert testified Wednesday. "There is a reasonable likelihood the defendants would not receive a fair trial," the expert, Bryan Edelman, a social physiologist, said on the second day of a change of venue hearing before Superior Court Judge Thomas Reardon. In Los Angeles County -- which is where the pair wants Reardon to move the trial -- only 41 percent...

OAKLAND — Former Your Black Muslim Bakery leader Yusuf Bey IV and co-defendant Antoine Mackey will likely seek a change of venue next month for their upcoming triple murder trial, lawyers in the case said Monday. Alameda County Superior Court Judge Morris Jacobson set a hearing on the matter for June 21 during a brief hearing. No motions have been yet filed. "We are exploring it," Bey IV's lawyer, Gene Peretti, said. Neither Bey IV nor Mackey appeared in court. Bey IV faces three counts of murder. He is charged with ordering the killings of journalist Chauncey Bailey and two...

Yusuf Bey IV ordered one of his bodyguards at the former Your Black Muslim Bakery to kill two witnesses in his upcoming triple murder trial, a plot that investigators unraveled before anyone was attacked, according to documents and officials. Bey IV — being held in Santa Rita Jail in Dublin — tasked Gary Popoff, 42, with "eliminating witnesses," an official with knowledge of the matter said Wednesday. According to police documents, investigators from the Alameda County District Attorney's Office arrested Popoff during a traffic stop near downtown Oakland on March 12 on suspicion of attempted witness intimidation, the same day...

OAKLAND — As Your Black Muslim Bakery teetered on financial collapse in the spring of 2007, Yusuf Bey IV bragged that robbing an East Oakland drug dealer known for wearing white suits and driving a Mercedes-Benz would net the business a $500,000 windfall, his half-brother, Yusuf Bey V, testified Monday. When Bey IV led four of his followers out on the night of May 17, 2007, Bey V said he believed they were going to find that dealer, Tim Crawford, and take his money. The bakery was more than $1 million in debt at the time and had filed for...

OAKLAND — A jury Monday deadlocked on assault charges against three men who once were members of Your Black Muslim Bakery and acquitted a fourth, ending a two-week trial with no convictions. Jurors told Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Horner that they could not reach verdicts against Dahood Bey and Basheer Muhammad, who were accused of leading an attack Dec. 21, 2008, against a man who rented a room from Bey. Bey also was charged with torture. Ajuwon Muhammad, the third defendant, was acquitted on a robbery charge; jurors said they could not agree on an assault charge against him. The...

Despite state investigators and other experts saying that a detective's ties to Your Black Muslim Bakery's young leader compromised his investigation of a journalist's slaying, the Oakland Police Department will decline to discipline him, police sources say. Sgt. Derwin Longmire, who investigated the Aug. 2, 2007, killing of Oakland Post editor Chauncey Bailey in downtown Oakland, will return to work within days, according to three department sources who spoke on condition of anonymity. He was reassigned from homicide to patrol last year, and he has been on paid administrative leave since April pending possible disciplinary action in this case. Longmire's...

Yusuf Bey IV tried several times last year to persuade one of his former followers from Your Black Muslim Bakery not to testify against him in a kidnapping and torture case, recorded telephone calls reveal. Bey IV spoke with Kalil Raheem from jail in early 2008 as authorities were pressuring Raheem to testify against him. Sometimes cajoling, sometimes making veiled threats, Bey IV repeatedly asked Raheem not to cooperate with prosecutors even if it meant that Raheem would be locked up, according to recordings of the calls that The Chauncey Bailey Project obtained. "They are going to send me to...

Oakland, Calif. (AP) -- Court documents claim a man charged in the murder of an Oakland journalist was also involved in the killing of his own brother. Yusuf Bey IV, former head of Your Black Muslim Bakery, has pleaded not guilty in the deaths of Oakland Post editor Chauncey Bailey and two other men. Yusuf Bey IV's brother, Antar Bey, was killed in 2005. Alfonza Phillips is serving life in prison for that murder. In documents filed last week seeking to overturn Phillips' conviction, defense attorney Randi Covin says Yusuf Bey IV and two other men acted on their intent...

OAKLAND, CALIF. -- The leader of Your Black Muslim Bakery embraced the men who had just told him they carried out orders to kill Oakland journalist Chauncey Bailey, telling them "I love y'all," according to the admitted gunman's chilling grand jury account released Thursday. The April testimony of confessed killer Devaughndre Broussard led to the indictment of onetime bakery leader Yusuf Bey IV, 23, in the 2007 slaying of Bailey and the killings of two other men. Also indicted in the three slayings was bakery follower Antoine Mackey, also 23. On Thursday, Bey and Mackey pleaded not guilty to murdering...

A former Your Black Muslim Bakery associate wanted in two California counties has been arrested in St. Louis. A St. Louis Metropolitan Police spokeswoman confirmed Friday the arrest of Ajuwon Fardjamaal Muhammad, 25, but couldn't immediately provide any details on the circumstances. An online court records system indicates he's charged there with misdemeanor interference with legal process. Muhammad is wanted in Alameda County for his alleged role in the New Year's Eve beating of an East Oakland man; he's charged with battery with serious bodily injury and criminal threats. Police case notes say victim Jerome Muhammad reported eight to 12...

Authorities believe a body found buried last week in a San Francisco park is that of a man who had ties to Your Black Muslim Bakery in Oakland and who vanished two years ago under suspicious circumstances, The Chronicle has learned. The man, thought to be Omar Sharif Allah, disappeared in October 2007 as the black self-empowerment group was in the final stages of its unraveling. Its leader, Yusuf Bey IV, son of the man who founded the bakery in 1968, had been jailed two months earlier on charges of kidnapping two women and torturing one of them. Bey IV...

Oakland, Calif. (AP) -- A former community-group leader accused of ordering the murder of three men, including a newspaper editor, was scheduled to be arraigned Friday. It'll be the third time Yusuf Bey IV will stand in front of a judge for the murder of Chauncey Bailey and two other men in 2007. Bailey was an editor for the Oakland Post and working on a story about the finances of Bey's Your Black Muslim Bakery when he was gunned down on the way to work.

OAKLAND -- The prosecution's key witness in the murder case against Your Black Muslim Bakery leader Yusuf Bey IV pleaded guilty Thursday to two counts of voluntary manslaughter for allegedly carrying out Bey's orders to shoot Oakland journalist Chauncey Bailey and a homeless man whose nephew killed Bey's brother. Devaughndre Broussard, 21, a former bakery handyman, entered the plea as part of a deal with prosecutors to secure his testimony against Bey and Antoine Mackey, another bakery figure. Both men face potential death sentences if convicted of murder for the 2007 deaths of Bailey and two other men, Odell Roberson...

OAKLAND - A grand jury today voted to indict Yusuf Ali Bey IV, the scion of the defunct Your Black Muslim Bakery, for ordering the killings of journalist Chauncey Bailey and two other men in 2007, authorities familiar with the situation said. Prosecutors are likely to bring the case with special circumstances - allowing them to seek the death penalty against Bey IV, 23. He allegedly told two of his followers that in exchange for killing Bailey, he would teach them how to file fraudulent loan applications that could reap hundreds of thousands of dollars. Another man, Antoine Arelus Mackey,...