OAKLAND, Calif., June 10 (UPI) -- The former head of Your Black Muslim Bakery, an activist group in Oakland, Calif., was convicted Thursday of arranging the killing of a black newspaper editor.
Yusuf Bey IV, 25, faces a sentence of life with no parole, the Oakland Tribune reported. Bey, neatly dressed in a pinstripe suit and bow tie, showed little emotion as jurors found him guilty of ordering the deaths of Chauncey Bailey, editor of the Oakland Post, who was shot as he walked to work in 2007, and of two other men killed the same year.
A co-defendant, Antoine Mackey, was convicted of participating in Bailey's killing and of one of the other killings. Another man, Devaughndre Broussard, pleaded guilty to killing Bailey and testified for the prosecution.
Bailey was investigating Your Black Muslim Bakery, which had been in Oakland since 1971. The group had been having financial problems since its founder, Yusuf Bey, died in 2003.
"I'm very teary. This has been a long journey but justice has finally been done, it's over," said Wendy Ashley-Johnson, Bailey's cousin, after the verdict. "Journalists have a job to do and they should not be squashed in what they do, and that's what they tried to do to Chauncey. That's why the family decided to talk to the press, because that's what Chauncey would have wanted us to do."
