A US appellate court overturned the "murder for hire" conviction of a Chinese gang kingpin who wanted a rival killed to expand his criminal empire, court documents showed on Friday.
Wo Hop To gang boss Peter Chong in San Francisco evidently condoned assassinating a Boston rival but didn't pay the aspiring killers anything, Judge Raymond Fisher wrote for the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Fisher and two other appellate judges ruled that, according to the law, Chong can't be guilty of contracting a murder if he didn't exchange "anything of pecuniary value" for the dirty work.
The evidence at trial showed that an underling, who failed in his deadly mission, "volunteered for a dangerous assignment and wound up getting some walking-around money in the course of traveling to Boston," Fisher wrote.
The judges faulted federal prosecutors for asking directly during the trial whether intended hitmen were paid for the job.
"Accordingly, we reverse Chong's conviction on murder-for-hire," Fisher concluded.
Chong is to remain in custody pending a hearing at which his sentence will be revised, the judges decreed.
Jurors that convicted Chong at a trial in 2003 found him guilty of conspiring to contract a murder, along with "participating in a racketeer influenced and corrupt organization" and several counts of extortion.
Chong, who is in his early 60s, was sentenced to slightly more than 15 years in federal prison for his original convictions.
Chong's lawyer argued publicly after the Thursday court ruling that Chong should be freed because he has already spent enough time behind bars, given the murder-for-hire charge was tossed.
Chong came to the United States in 1982 to supposedly establish a Chinese opera company, but rose to be boss of the Wo Hop To crime syndicate in Northern California, according to court documents.
The gang specialized in loan sharking and extorting protection money from restaurants and gambling dens.
Chong forged alliances with fellow gangsters Wayne Kwong and Raymond Chow to form "an umbrella organization" called "Tien Ha Wui," which translates to "Whole Earth Association," according to prosecutors.
The gangsters envisioned getting a foothold on the East Coast by eliminating Bike Ming, boss of the Boston gang "Ping On," and setting up a gambling operation in that city's Chinatown.
The collapse of the Swiss Birch glacier serves as a chilling warning of the escalating dangers faced by communities worldwide living under the shadow of fragile ice, particularly in Asia, experts said. Footage of the collapse on Wednesday showed a huge cloud of ice and rubble hurtling down the mountainside into the hamlet of Blatten. Swiss Development Cooperation disaster risk reduction adviser Ali Neumann said that while the role of climate change in the case of Blatten “still needs to be investigated,” the wider impacts were clear on the cryosphere — the part of the world covered by frozen water. “Climate change and
Poland is set to hold a presidential runoff election today between two candidates offering starkly different visions for the country’s future. The winner would succeed Polish President Andrzej Duda, a conservative who is finishing his second and final term. The outcome would determine whether Poland embraces a nationalist populist trajectory or pivots more fully toward liberal, pro-European policies. An exit poll by Ipsos would be released when polls close today at 9pm local time, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. Final results are expected tomorrow. Whoever wins can be expected to either help or hinder the
DENIAL: Musk said that the ‘New York Times was lying their ass off,’ after it reported he used so much drugs that he developed bladder problems Elon Musk on Saturday denied a report that he used ketamine and other drugs extensively last year on the US presidential campaign trail. The New York Times on Friday reported that the billionaire adviser to US President Donald Trump used so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that he developed bladder problems. The newspaper said the world’s richest person also took ecstasy and mushrooms, and traveled with a pill box last year, adding that it was not known whether Musk also took drugs while heading the so-called US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) after Trump took power in January. In a
It turns out that looming collision between our Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies might not happen after all. Astronomers on Monday said that the probability of the two spiral galaxies colliding is less than previously thought, with a 50-50 chance within the next 10 billion years. That is essentially a coin flip, but still better odds than previous estimates and farther out in time. “As it stands, proclamations of the impending demise of our galaxy seem greatly exaggerated,” the Finnish-led team wrote in a study appearing in Nature Astronomy. While good news for the Milky Way galaxy, the latest forecast might be moot
RSS