The Snakehead: An Epic Tale of the Chinatown Underworld and the American Dream (63 page)

283
Jerry Stuchiner knew:
Interview with Jerry Stuchiner, May 23, 2007.

283.
But by the time the ship went down:
Larmer and Liu, “Smuggling People.”

284.
Stuchiner and his girlfriend:
Glenn Schloss, “Fake Passport Flight of Fancy Ends in Grief,”
South China Morning Post
, August 17, 1996.

284
He had not realized:
Larmer and Liu, “Smuggling People.”

284
The Fat Man was standing:
Immigration and Naturalization Service Office of the Inspector General, “Inspector General Announces Arrest of INS Official in Alien Smuggling Ring,” press release, July 16, 1996.

284
Herby Weizenblut, the friend:
Glenn Schloss, “Diplomat’s Immunity ‘Lifted Too Late,’”
South China Morning Post
, August 17, 1996.

284
As details emerged:
Glenn Schloss, “Investigator from Honduras to Probe Scam,”
South China Morning Post
, May 22, 1997.

284
“I am very sad”:
Anthony DeStefano, “Black Eye for the INS,”
Newsday
, July 18, 1996.

284
She was subsequently suspended:
Glenn Schloss, “Envoy Axed After Scam Claim,”
South China Morning Post
, July 24, 1996; “Honduran Passport Case Leads to Suspensions,”
Orlando Sentinel
, July 23, 1996.

284
Stuchiner pleaded guilty:
He was sentenced to forty months in prison, but because of a technical error in the prosecution’s original charges against him, he was resentenced. See “Ex-Official Resentenced in U.S. Passport Case,”
Washington Post
, May 20, 1997; Patricia Young, “Man Jailed for Wrong Crime,”
South China Morning Post
, April 18, 1997.

284
But as the July 1, 1997, deadline:
Larmer and Melinda, “Smuggling People.”

285
The gambit succeeded:
William Branigin, “Hong Kong Set to Free Jailed Former INS Agent,”
Washington Post
, June 13, 1997.

285
For reasons that were never explained:
Confidential interview with a current ICE official.

285
Some speculated:
Larmer and Liu, “Smuggling People.”

285
Others wondered if the
Golden Venture:
Confidential interview with a current ICE official.

286
“The only person”:
Confidential interview with a former INS agent.

CHAPTER 17: CATCHING LILLY ZHANG

This chapter is based chiefly on interviews with law enforcement officials who were involved in the handling of Ah Kay during his long cooperation or in the capture of Sister Ping, or both. In describing Ah Kay’s cooperation I relied on letters written by federal prosecutors before each of his two sentencing hearings, which spell out in detail the help he offered in over a dozen cases. (I was surprised to find that these letters had been quietly unsealed and were sitting unnoticed in his case file at the courthouse.) The transcripts and other court documents in Ah Kay’s case, and in Cheung Yick Tak’s, were also helpful, as was the testimony during Sister Ping’s trial of Detective Sze-To Yuk Yee, the arresting officer from the Hong Kong police.

287
Ah Kay gazed directly:
Footage from
CBS Evening News
(New York), April 13, 1994.

287
By agreeing to cooperate:
Ah Kay testimony, Sister Ping trial.

287
Because the gang leader:
Interview with Konrad Motyka and Bill McMurry, December 15, 2005.

288
“I’m benching three hundred”:
Interview with Tom Trautman, May 3, 2007.

288
Like the Fat Man before him:
Interview with Luke Rettler, December 8, 2005.

288
When Mr. Charlie was captured:
Interview with Jodi Avergun, May 24, 2007.

288
Ah Kay admitted that he:
Letter from Assistant U.S. Attorney Chauncey Parker to Hon. Judge John S. Martin, Jr., re: United States v. Kwok Ling Kay, July 27, 1998.

288
When Dan Xin Lin and the other:
Interview with William J. Murray, April 19, 2007.

288
Nor did Ah Kay merely assist:
Interview with Konrad Motyka and Bill McMurry, December 15, 2005; interview with Luke Rettler, December 8, 2005; interview with Chauncey Parker, May 29, 2007.

289
So extensive was this proactive:
Sentencing hearing in United States v. Kwok Ling Kay, 93 Cr. 783 (JSM), December 4, 1998.

289
“The one thing about Ah Kay”:
Interview with Bill McMurry, December 15, 2005.

289
Over the years, Ah Kay assisted:
Letter from Parker to Martin, re: United States v. Kwok Ling Kay.

289
The result was the criminal equivalent:
Interview with Chauncey Parker, May 29, 2007.

289
Before long, Luke Rettler joked:
Interview with Luke Rettler, July 26, 2007.

289
Upon his return to the United States:
Judgment in a criminal case, U.S. v. Kwok Ling Kay, 93 CR 783, December 18, 1998. The specific charges to which Ah Kay pleaded guilty were participation in racketeering activity, murder in aid of racketeering, and conspiracy to murder.

290
Finally one day in 1998:
Sentencing hearing in United States v. Kwok Ling Kay, December 4, 1998.

290
The federal prosecutor Chauncey Parker:
Letter from Parker to Martin, re: United States v. Kwok Ling Kay.

290
Neither Ah Kay nor Shargel:
Joseph P. Fried, “Ex-Underboss Given Lenient Term for Help as Witness,”
New York Times
, September 27, 1994; Selwyn Raab, “Singing for Your Sentence: How Will It Pay Off?”
New York Times
, September 26, 1994.

290
“In these five years”:
Sentencing hearing in United States v. Kwok Ling Kay, December 17, 1998.

290
But the judge, John Martin:
Ibid.

291
The first thing Ah Kay did:
Interview with Gerald Shargel, July 14, 2008.

291
But after his sentencing:
Letter from Assistant U.S. Attorney Leslie Brown to Judge Michael B. Mukasey, re: United States v. Qui Liang Qi, aka “Ah Kay,” S3 93 CR. 783, August 2, 2005.

291
Ah Kay had volunteered:
Interview with Konrad Motyka and Bill McMurry, October 19, 2007.

291
“That’s what he was waiting for”:
Confidential interview.

291
During the years:
Interview with Konrad Motyka and Bill McMurry, October 31, 2005; interview with FBI Special Agent Carlos Koo, who also worked on the Sister Ping case during the 1990s, July 2, 2008.

292
Eventually Motyka and McMurry:
Ibid.

292
Occasionally Motyka and McMurry would know:
Interview with Carlos Koo, July 2, 2008.

292
On one occasion the FBI:
Confidential interview.

293
The FBI requested:
Interview with Wayne Walsh, Hong Kong Department of Justice, February 19, 2007; confidential interview.

293
Because she had a range:
INS, “Passenger Activity Report (Official Use Only),” Zhang, L., December 10, 2004.

293
Indeed, it was rumored:
Interview with Carlos Koo, July 2, 2008.

293
Yick Tak did not like:
Interview with Konrad Motyka and Bill McMurry, January 10, 2009.

293
The original criminal complaint:
Sealed complaint, United States of America v. Cheng Chui Ping, aka “Sister Ping,” Cheng Yick Tak, Federal District Court for the Southern District of New York, December 16, 1994.

294
According to the FBI:
Interview with Konrad Motyka and Bill McMurry, October 19, 2007.

294
Bill McMurry and another agent:
Interview with Carlos Koo, July 2, 2008.

294
“Since 1993, I have been working”:
United States v. Yick Tak Cheng, 98 CR. 38, sentencing hearing before Judge Deborah Batts, July 14, 2003.

294
His lawyer said the same:
Ibid.

294.
On January 16, 1998:
All events and dates relating to Yick Tak’s subsequent legal history are drawn from the docket in USA v. Cheng, 1:98 CR 38 DAB, before Judge Deborah Betts in the Southern District of New York.

295.
According to one prosecutor:
Confidential interview.

295
But the biggest mystery:
Confidential interview with a current official at ICE.

295
Either Yick Tak:
One former INS official who spoke to me on the record and floated the suggestion that bribery could have been involved was James Goldman. Two other officials who would not speak for attribution because they currently work for ICE independently offered the same possible explanation.

295
When he was finally sentenced:
United States v. Yick Tak Cheng, 98 CR. 38, sentencing hearing before Judge Deborah Batts, July 14, 2003.

295
But along with both:
I spent several fruitless months appealing to prosecutors, defense attorneys, and judges in both Buffalo and New York City to find some record of the cooperation that Yick Tak provided to law enforcement over the years and some explanation of how he managed to evade any substantial punishment for his crimes. When a sentence is reduced on the basis of cooperation, prosecutors generally write a letter to the judge detailing that cooperation. There is some dispute over whether these letters should be made available to the public, and even if a presumption in favor of making them available is adopted, it still depends on the discretion of the judge in each particular case. Criminal defendants might be less inclined to cooperate with law enforcement if they think that a prosecutor will be describing their every betrayal of their former criminal associates in a letter that will soon be available to anyone who goes to the courthouse to look it up. But it does seem slightly odd that two letters describing Ah Kay’s extensive cooperation have been unsealed and now sit in his case file at 500 Pearl Street in downtown Manhattan for the perusal of the general public, but no one familiar with the precise details of Yick Tak’s cooperation is willing to release them.

295
Bill McMurry and Konrad Motyka:
Interview with Konrad Motyka and Bill McMurry, October 19, 2007.

296
Once McMurry and Motyka:
Interview with Konrad Motyka and Bill McMurry, October 31, 2005.

296
One day in early 2000:
Confidential interview with a former INS agent.

297
On April 11, 2000:
Unless otherwise indicated, the account of Sister Ping’s arrest at the airport in Hong Kong is drawn from testimony of Detective Sze-To Yuk Yee of the Hong Kong police, in United States v. Cheng Chui Ping, aka “Sister Ping,” 94 CR 953 (hereafter Sze-To Yuk Yee testimony, Sister Ping trial).

298
But it appeared:
Bill McMurry testimony, Sister Ping trial. The passport-stamp description is drawn from my own examination of a photocopy of the pages of the passport, provided to me by the U.S. attorney’s office in the Southern District of New York.

298
In three months:
Closing arguments of Leslie Brown, Sister Ping trial.

298
Belize has a program:
Anne Sutherland,
The Making of Belize: Globalization in the Margins
(Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey, 1998), p. 27.

298
When the agents contacted:
Interview with Konrad Motyka and Bill McMurry, December 15, 2005.

298
But perhaps the most interesting thing:
Bill McMurry testimony, Sister Ping trial. Also I saw a photocopy of the
book, along with a translated copy, which was used as an exhibit at trial and provided to me by the U.S. attorneys office.

299
“The arrest of Cheng Chui Ping”:
Press release by U.S. Consul General Michael Klosson, April 21, 2000.

CHAPTER 18: THE MOTHER OF ALL SNAKEHEADS

The trial transcripts from Sister Ping’s case form the basis of this chapter, along with my notes from the sentencing hearing and various other court documents. The details regarding Sister Ping’s extradition battle are drawn from court documents obtained in Hong Kong and from an interview with Wayne Walsh of the Hong Kong Department of Justice, who represented the government in the proceedings.

301
For Bill McMurry:
Interview with Bill McMurry, October 31, 2005.

301
After her arrest in April 2000:
“Hong Kong: Prison Conditions in 1997,” Section VII, “Special Categories of Prisoners,” Human Rights Watch, 1997; interview with Wayne Walsh, Hong Kong Department of Justice, February 19, 2007.

301
When a Hong Kong court:
Interview with Wayne Walsh, February 19, 2007; Cheng Chui Ping and Superintendent of Tai Lam Centre for Women & Another, Decision by the Court of First Instance (Hong Kong), Constitutional and Administrative Law List, No. 1985 or 2000, 26–27 September 2000.

302
She sued the government:
Hong Kong Department of Justice time line, “Cheng Chui Ping aka Sister Ping,’” undated document supplied by Wayne Walsh; Mo Pui Yee, “Big Sister Ping’ in Last-Ditch Court Bid,”
South China Morning Post
, September 27, 2000.

302
Amid the flurry:
James Harder, “Mother of All Snakeheads,”
Insight on the News
, February 5, 2001.

302
In December 2002, Sister Ping:
Sara Bradford, “Extradition Blow for Big Sister Ping,”
South China Morning Post
, December 13, 2002.

302
“In the execution of law”:
Ibid.

302
Sister Ping told the court:
Ibid.

302
The appeal was unsuccessful:
Peter Michael and Sara Bradford, “Big Sister’ Ping to Be Extradited,”
South China Morning Post
, June 12, 2003.