Daulet Bey illegally transferred three houses, bankruptcy trustee says.

By Josh Richman, Thomas Peele, G.W. Schulz and A.C. Thompson, Chauncey Bailey Project

The bankruptcy court trustee in charge of liquidating Your Black Muslim Bakery is going after three properties worth $2.28 million that the bakery gave its CEO’s mother in what the

Daulet Bey, left, leaves the courthouse with a family supporter after her son, Yusuf Bey IV, is arraigned on kidnapping and robbery charges Aug. 7, 2007. (D. Ross Cameron, Oakland Tribune)

trustee claims was an attempt to hide those assets from creditors.

Attorneys for trustee Tevis Thompson filed a complaint Tuesday against Daulet Bey, who turns 50 on Monday and is mother to eight children ofthe bakery’s late founder and patriarch, Yusuf Ali Bey. Among those children is Yusuf Ali Bey IV, 21, the bakery’s current CEO, now in jail on kidnapping, torture and real-estate fraud charges.

Thompson’s complaint says the transfers to Daulet Bey were an attempt “to hinder, delay or defraud creditors” and asks the court to revert the properties back to the bakery and trustee.

Daulet Bey disputed the trustee’s charges: “Absolutely untrue. … I have no comment, but I can definitely tell you it’s not fraudulent.”

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Investigative Report:

Main story:  Bey matriarch accused of duping creditors

List: Bey property transactions

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 Long an Oakland community institution, Your Black Muslim Bakery is now in ruins. Aside from its pending liquidation and the criminal charges against its chief executive officer, a bakery handyman is accused of the Aug. 2 murder of Oakland Post editor Chauncey Bailey, and other bakery associates are charged with a slew of other felonies.Thompson’s complaint says that on Feb. 9, 2006 — eight months before filing for bankruptcy protection from about $1.1 million in debts — the bakery transferred the properties at 5873 and 5877 San Pablo Ave. in Oakland to Daulet Bey free of charge, as a “gift.” Yusuf Ali Bey IV was the bakery’s CEO at the time of transfer.These properties, now assessed at a total taxable value of $1,897,200, are storefronts with apartments upstairs, up the block and across the street from the bakery’s headquarters at 5832 San Pablo Ave. They’ve been home to several businesses owned by the Bey family and its associates, including a security firm and a bail bond company.Property records show Your Black Muslim Bakery bought 5873 San Pablo Ave. in 1978 for $42,000.

According to county property records on Oct. 26, 2007, this property located at 541 Merrimac Street in Oakland, Calif., belongs to Daulet Bey. (Karna Kurata, Oakland Tribune)

Records show the other two properties the trustee is interested in have changed hands myriad times in a complex web of transactions — often with no payment.

Property records show the building at 5877 San Pablo Ave. came into the family in August 2002, when Madeeah Bey bought it for $500,000. Four months later, Madeeah Bey, another mother of children to patriarch Yusuf Ali Bey, gave the property to Richard Stovall, who has lent the family money on several occasions and now is a creditor in this bankruptcy. Two months after that, Stovall gave the property back to the bakery.

The third property, a residential duplex at 539-541 Merrimac St. in Oakland, has been “gifted” at least five times between Daulet Bey, Your Black Muslim Bakery and Madeeah Bey, according to public records. By May 26, 2004, the bakery had given the property back to Daulet Bey, also without payment.

The duplex is now assessed at a taxable value of $382,031. The bakery’s CEO at the time of that transfer was Antar Bey, another of Daulet Bey’s sons. He was slain in an apparent carjacking attempt in late 2005.

The trustee’s complaint says the 2004 and 2006 transfers to Daulet Bey “were done with the actual intent to hinder, delay or defraud creditors of the debtor.”

Reached Friday, Daulet Bey said news of the trustee’s complaint came as something of a surprise. She said they’d spoken “only concerning options, not concerning filing anything towards me. They know there’s nothing fraudulent.” At the times the properties were transferred to her, she said, “I didn’t know anything about a bankruptcy or anything like that.”

Asked whether she has retained an attorney, she replied, “It’s probably not going to come to attorneys or anything else. They know it’s not fraud, and I know it’s not fraud. Something will be worked out.

“I’ve done absolutely nothing wrong. I’ve done nothing fraudulent. The only thing I’ve done in these last two years is try to help, … and whatever way this situation turns out, it’s the will of God and I submit. But again, I didn’t do anything wrong, nothing fraudulent. I’m not that type of person.”

Eric Nyberg, the trustee’s attorney, wouldn’t say much Friday beyond what was in the filing.

“The complaint does pretty much set forth the trustee’s position,” he said. “Ultimately the court will determine who’s right and who’s wrong.”

Alameda County property records indicate Daulet Bey and Your Black Muslim Bakery since 1999 have taken a total of $1.5 million in loans against the properties now at issue — $900,000 against the Merrimac Street property, which also was used to secure Yusuf Ali Bey IV’s release from jail on bail in May 2006 in an unrelated case; and about $600,000 against 5877 San Pablo Ave.

The last of those loans was a meager $650 taken against 5873 and 5877 San Pablo Ave. in December 2006, two months after Yusuf Ali Bey IV filed a voluntary petition for the bakery’s bankruptcy.

The trustee’s complaint was filed four days after the bakery’s lawyer, Fayedine Coulter of Oakland, filed a motion to withdraw from the case, noting a “lack of communication” between herself and her clients.

Coulter didn’t return a phone call or an e-mail seeking comment Friday.

The Chauncey Bailey Project is a consortium of news organizations dedicated to continuing the reporting Bailey, editor of the Oakland Post, was pursuing when he was killed Aug. 2. For more information about the project or its collaborators, contact Dori J. Maynard of the Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education at 510-684-3071. The public can e-mail tips to cbproject@bayareanewsgroup.com.