Black Muslim Bakery Members Sentenced In Oakland Kidnapping
OAKLAND (BCN) -- A half-brother of former Your Black Muslim Bakery leader Yusuf Bey IV was sentenced Friday to 10 years in state prison for his role in a May 2007 incident in which a group of bakery associates kidnapped and tortured two women in an effort to get money from them.
Yusuf Bey V, 24, who has the same father as Bey IV but a different mother, pleaded no contest to one count of kidnapping on June 19, 2009. Five other felony charges against him were dismissed.
Prosecutors said the May 17, 2007, crime was a bungled attempt to get money to save the bakery from bankruptcy four days before a foreclosure hearing. The bakery went bankrupt and closed later that year.
His plea agreement called for him to testify against co-defendant Richard Lewis, a former football star at Mission High School in San Francisco.
Due partly to testimony by Bey V and another half-brother, Joshua Bey, Lewis, 26, was convicted on April 7, 2010, of kidnapping, torture and carjacking.
After numerous delays, Lewis was sentenced on Dec. 10 to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Bey V had also faced a possible term of life in prison without the possible parole if he'd been convicted of all the charges against him.
Joshua Bey, 23, pleaded guilty on Jan. 29, 2008, to a single count of kidnapping in an agreement with prosecutors that calls for him to receive a sentence of three years in return for testifying against the other defendants in the case.
He hasn't yet been sentenced because he still is required to testify against the two remaining defendants in the case, who are Bey IV, 25, and Tamon Halfin, 24.
Bey V was only required to testify against Lewis.
The trial against Bey IV and Halfin won't start anytime soon because Bey IV must first stand trial on three counts of murder for the shooting deaths of journalist Chauncey Bailey and two other men in Oakland in the summer of 2007.
Jury selection for the trial of Bey IV and co-defendant Antoine Mackey, 25, has already started, and opening statements are scheduled for March 21.
The Bey half-brothers are the sons of Yusuf Bey, who founded Your Black Muslim Bakery in 1968 and died in 2003.
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