Plea Agreement Reached in Black Muslim Murder Case
Posted: Tuesday, June 16th, 2009 at 2:47 pm
San Francisco—Lawyers say that a plea agreement has been reached in the case of a slain Bay-area journalist.
The alleged killer will plead guilty to the voluntary manslaughter of Oakland Post editor and investigative journalist Chauncey Bailey, and will testify against two others in several cases.
In return, 21-year-old Devaughndre Broussard will be sentenced to no more than 25 years in prison, says his defense attorney, LeRue Grim. Broussard, who has admitting to killing Bailey and one other person, would have faced up to 50 years in prison if tried and convicted.
“For a 21-year-old guy, that is a long, long time,” said Grim, “so there were a couple other murders the police had been unable to solve and he knew who did those and so he made a statement to the DA and the police.”
Broussard claimed to be acting on orders from a Black Muslim organization while employed as a handyman for Your Black Muslim Bakery. Yusuf Bey IV, a 23-year-old Black Muslim leader, was upset that Bailey had been reporting on the controversial local business, and the politically influential group which operated it.
Bailey, whose newspaper serves the black community of the Bay Area, was shot while walking to work. He was 57 years old at the time of his murder.
Bey, the son of the late founder of the bakery, promised Broussard and another man financial incentives to carry out three murders. In addition to killing Bailey, and also driving the getaway car in the 2007 slaying of an unnamed man, Broussard also killed a relative of someone who had in turn killed Bey’s uncle.
In August 2007, the bakery was raided by an Oakland SWAT team. Seven people were taken into custody at that time.
Broussard will testify before a grand jury about his role in the three killings, as well as about the participation of two other men.
Bey, who is serving time on unrelated kidnapping and torture charges, did not issue a statement about the plea bargain.
The prosecutor in the case, Deputy District Attorney Chris Lamiero, would not comment on the plea agreement either. He said that the trial in the death of the editor and journalist was still on the docket for May 2009.
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