Jannah Bey enters courtroom Dec. 1, 2005 (BobLarson/ContraCostaTimes)

Jannah Bey enters courtroom Dec. 1, 2005 (BobLarson/ContraCostaTimes)

The rise and fall of E.M. Health Services

By Cecily Burt and G.W. Schulz, Chauncey Bailey Project

OCTOBER 1993: E.M. Health’s nonprofit parent company, the Qiyamah Corp., files state business registration papers. Qiyamah initially sought a $3.4 million loan from the city to purchase property in North Oakland.

APRIL 1996: City of Oakland awards conditional approval of a $1.1 million federal Housing and Urban Development loan to E.M. Health Services, a subsidiary of Qiyamah, to establish a home-health aide training program.

JUNE 1996: Oakland City Council unanimously grants $275,000 interim payment to E.M. Health. That same month, local HUD director Steven Sachs warns in city documents that E.M. Health’s business plan lacked details. *****

Investigative Report: E.M. Health Services

E.M. Health, Part I

Story: How the bakery’s $1 million vanished

List: Who’s who of key players at E.M. Health

List: Timeline of E.M. Health’s loan

E.M. Health, Part II

Story: E.M. Health attempts to borrow away debt

E.M. Health, Part III

Story: Political, racial pressure pays off for the bakery

*****

FEBRUARY 1997: E.M. Health receives a MediCal/Medicare license number, allowing it to bill for government-subsidized health treatment.

SEPTEMBER 1997: Memo from city staffers shows a company called Ashanti Medical charged E.M. Health consulting fees totaling $11,900. Alameda County records indicate E.M. Health CEO Nedir Bey owned Ashanti. Throughout 1997, according to loan documents, E.M. Health paid approximately $40,000 in consulting fees and service payments to Bey and other bakery associates either directly or through companies they controlled.

AUGUST 1998: E.M. Health’s parent, Qiyamah, defaults on $100,000 bank loan leveraged against a property it used as a business address on Goss Street in Oakland. Default results in trustee’s sale of property, which by then is submerged in property liens from the city because of hazards and blight.

DECEMBER 1998: City sends first loan default letter to E.M. Health. Payments are eight months past due.

MARCH 2000: E.M. Health’s state business license is suspended by the California Franchise Tax Board. By 2003, state and federal tax officials had imposed tax liens on the company’s assets totaling nearly $200,000.

May 2007: Yusuf Bey’s Muslim wife, Daulet Bey, and their daughter, Jannah Bey, file to revive the state business license of Qiyamah, E.M. Health’s nonprofit company. State tax officials suspend the nonprofit’s licenseagain in September 2007 for failing to file and information report from 2005.