Salinas Valley State Prison, where Yusuf Bey IV is serving three life sentences for murder

Salinas Valley State Prison, where Yusuf Bey IV is serving three life sentences for murder

By Thomas Peele and Josh Richman, The Chauncey Bailey Project

Despite being locked up for three life sentences without parole, the convicted killer of journalist Chauncey Bailey vows in an Internet posting to return to Oakland “bigger and better” with “a surprise in store (for) friends and enemies.”

Yusuf Bey IV, 26, once the leader of the defunct Your Black Muslim Bakery, apparently has supporters running a website that carries several essays he wrote from the maximum security unit at Salinas Valley State Prison.

“There is a surprise in store for both friends and enemies as to the second phase of the work of the mission of Your Black Muslim Bakery,” one essay attributed to Bey IV states. The site claims Bey IV is now leader of an organization called Your Black Resurrected Nation.

*****
KTVU-TV: Imprisoned Muslim bakery leader tries relaunch from behind bars
KTVU-TV: Your Black Muslim Bakery Resurfaces Online
*****

Bey IV and other inmates have no Internet access in prison, Terry Thornton, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, wrote in an email Wednesday morning. But they are allowed to give letters to visitors to be published online or elsewhere.

The department is investigating the matter, she said.

The site is registered to a Lloyd Davis, of Los Angeles, according to domain registry records. It was unclear Wednesday what his connection is to Bey IV. He did not immediately return a phone call or email.

Parts of the site were in the process of being taken down Wednesday afternoon.

The site includes a request for donations, although it doesn’t explain where to give money.

“We as an organization cannot progress without your support and unity,” states an essay attributed to Bey IV entitled “Formal Address to the People.”

In another essay under Bey IV’s name, he claims the organization will have a “security defense guard” that will have “oversight in all cases of injustice and brutality at the hands of enemies of our nation both foreign and domestic.”

According to court records, Alameda County District Attorney’s Office investigators have monitored Bey IV talking in jail about a new organization since 2009 and claiming it would make him and his family rich.

This isn’t the first time Bey IV has tried to run a website from behind bars. In 2008 his girlfriend and sister briefly ran a site for him called Free the Bakery Brothers while he was in Santa Rita Jail in Dublin awaiting trial on kidnapping and torture charges. Bey IV had dictated its contents, including proclamations of innocence, in dozens of phone calls recorded by authorities. The site was taken down after his defense lawyer objected to it.

After a nearly four-month trial Bey IV was convicted last year of ordering the killings of Bailey and two other men, Odell Roberson and Michael Wills. Bey IV’s co-defendant, Antoine Mackey, 26, was convicted of killing Wills and helping a third man, 24-year-old Devaughndre Broussard, kill Bailey.

Broussard, who pleaded guilty to shooting Bailey as part of a plea bargain, testified that Bey IV wanted the journalist killed because he was working on a story for the Oakland Post about the bakery filing for bankruptcy.

“We gotta take him out before he write that story,” Broussard quoted Bey IV as saying when he gave the order.

Bey IV has appealed his conviction. His appellate lawyer, Clifford Gardner, said Wednesday morning he was not aware of the website or its contents.

There is no mention on the site — found through a search for Your Black Resurrected Nation — about Bailey, the other murder victims, or that Bey IV is in prison. It does state he may be slow in responding to messages “due to his current situation.”

Bey IV is one of more than 40 children of bakery founder and former Oakland mayoral candidate Yusuf Bey who died in 2003 while awaiting trial on charges he raped teenage girls who were left in his care. The elder Bey was a former hairdresser turned Black Muslim minister whose followers called him “Dr. Bey” despite his not being a doctor.

In another essay on the Resurrected Nation site, Bey IV repeatedly referred to his father as “Governor Dr. Bey.”