Man tied to Muslim bakery says he informed slain editor

OAKLAND, Calif. — The son-in-law of the founder of a group with alleged ties to an Oakland journalist’s murder claims he was the main source in the slain editor’s investigation into the organization’s finances.

Saleem Bey, 43, said Monday he had agreed just over two weeks ago to detail Your Black Muslim Bakery’s inner workings to Oakland Post editor Chauncey Bailey, who was gunned down last Thursday morning. He was 57.

Bey said he provided documents that cast light on what he alleged were fraudulent and unfair business practices by the group’s CEO, Yusuf Bey IV, 21, who was arrested along with six others in an Aug. 3 raid.

“I gave [Bailey] the stories. I knew everything that was going on. I thought it was dangerous for me, not him,” Saleem Bey told the San Francisco Chronicle.

Bailey had been investigating the bakery, but the newspaper could not verify several details of the story and never ran it, said Oakland Post lawyer Walter Riley, who would not confirm Saleem Bey as Bailey’s source.

A lawyer representing Yusuf Bey IV in several other criminal cases said she believed a property dispute with Saleem Bey’s side of the family may have motivated efforts to discredit her client.

“I’m not at all convinced just how reliable that the information that was provided to Chauncey Bailey might be, because I know there were bad feelings between these two factions of the family,” defense attorney Lorna Brown said.

Devaughndre Broussard, a 19-year-old associate of the bakery, confessed last week to fatally shooting Bailey, police said. He was expected to be arraigned Tuesday afternoon.

Your Black Muslim Bakery was founded nearly 40 years ago by Yusuf Bey with the goal of providing support and a haven for Oakland’s poor and had grown to include a security service, a school and other businesses. The organization is a regional splinter group that is not affiliated with the Nation of Islam, or with other area Muslim groups.

In recent years, financial and other problems had surfaced at the organization, which filed for bankruptcy last October.

In 2002, Yusuf Bey was accused of raping a girl who worked for him. He died of cancer in 2003 while awaiting trial. His appointed successor later disappeared and his body was found buried in the Oakland hills in a still-unsolved crime.

Yusuf Bey’s 23-year-old son, Antar Bey, took over leadership but he was killed in 2005 in what police called a botched carjacking attempt. His brother then took over.

Several of the business entities have been suspended by California’s Secretary of State and owe substantial state and federal taxes, according to public records.

Health officials shuttered the group’s bakery operations Friday over what they called unsanitary conditions.

(Associated Press)