Sources: Top SEIU Officials Are Implicated in Chow Scandal

Dave Regan and Debbie Schneider

As Tasty noted in a recent post, insiders report that SEIU’s election-fraud scandal involving Leon Chow will soon entangle top SEIU leaders, including Dave Regan and Debbie Schneider.

Information supplied by these sources links Regan and Schneider to the Chow scandal and also implicates them in even more serious law-breaking.

Who’s Debbie Schneider? She’s a member of SEIU’s International Executive Board, is a longtime ally of Andy Stern and Mary Kay Henry, and worked alongside Dave Regan as a “Deputy Trustee” at SEIU-UHW.

Beginning in the summer of 2008, Regan and Schneider led a team of SEIU staffers who spent six months planning the trusteeship of SEIU-UHW, which ultimately took place in January of 2009. Inside the Purple Palace, their secret planning project was codenamed “TRUHW” for “Trustee UHW.”

As part of this effort, Regan and Schneider employed investigators to try to dig up dirt on SEIU-UHW’s then-leaders. SEIU’s investigators left no stone unturned, examining each person’s legal records, romantic relationships, property records, divorces, savings accounts and, yes… their voting records!

That’s how Regan and Schneider -- in 2008 -- first discovered Chow’s election fraud. They learned that Chow, from 2004 to 2008, had registered and voted illegally from the offices of the Chinese Progressive Association in San Francisco even though he lived in different county. Of course, this is the same apparently criminal violation that the San Francisco Appeal unearthed just two weeks ago.

So did Regan and Schneider hand over this information to law enforcement officials when they discovered it back in 2008? 


Nope!  And this is where our story gets even more interesting.

Less than 24 hours after SEIU imposed its trusteeship on SEIU-UHW in January of 2009, Leon Chow resigned his membership in SEIU and joined NUHW… as did every other member of SEIU-UHW’s 100-member Executive Board. Then, several days later, Regan and Schneider contacted Chow and reportedly threatened to turn him in to law-enforcement officials unless he quit NUHW and worked for the trustees! Chow complied. Various sources corroborate this series of events. 

Why is this important? Simple. It would implicate Regan and Schneider in multiple criminal violations, including extortion. Plus, Regan and Schneider became aware of a felony violation of the state's election laws, but reportedly failed to report it to police. Both of these violations carry serious criminal penalties.

And there’s more!

In 2012, Regan -- knowing that Chow had violated the state’s election laws -- nonetheless selected and sponsored Chow as a candidate for San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors. Regan even spent lots of SEIU-UHW’s resources to promote Chow’s campaign.

Furthermore, sources tell Tasty that Regan was fully aware of Chow’s more recent violations of election laws, including the fact that Chow claimed to reside in San Francisco while actually living in his Walnut Creek condominium. Regan, believing this information would never become public, deliberately foisted a fraudulent candidate on voters. 

What’s next? 


Tasty expects that law-enforcement officials will soon be posing questions about these interesting issues to Leon Chow and others... while they're under penalty of perjury!!


PS. A note to SEIU staffers. It is illegal to destroy records that are the subject of a criminal investigation.

Leon Chow: "I Was Homeless while Earning Six Figures"

Leon Chow channels Pinocchio

‘I was basically homeless.’

That, according to SEIU-UHW’s Leon Chow, is the reason why he apparently committed felony violations of voting laws described in yesterday’s edition of the San Francisco Appeal.

Homeless??

Gimme a break!  Unless, of course, Chow happens to be the first person in recorded history to be “homeless” while simultaneously earning more than $100,000 a year!

It turns out that from 2006 to 2011, Chow was paid an average of $108,000 a year by SEIU-UHW, according to union records filed with the US Department of Labor. In fact, here’s what Leon “I’m Homeless” Chow pocketed in 2011:  $111,179. (Click on the image below to enlarge it.)

Excerpt from SEIU-UHW's DOL Form LM-2 for 2011

And that’s not all. It turns out that Chow -- who's a member of SEIU-UHW's Executive Committee -- was somehow “homelessness” at the same time that he owned a condominium in Walnut Creek! Quite a trick, huh?

Hey Leon... Tasty has a humble suggestion:  Before making pathetically dishonest claims about your deprived existence, you might wanna spend some time reviewing the paychecks of the homecare workers whom you’re supposed to represent. Many of these workers earn less than $15,000 a year and have none of the Cadillac benefits that you enjoy.

So what’s next for Leon? 

Well, Chow may not be “homeless,” but he’s definitely been afflicted by the same foot-in-mouth disease that’s famously infected SEIU’s Dave Regan. We can all look forward to additional faceplants by Leon in the days ahead… especially when he undergoes questioning by the District Attorney and the Secretary of State’s Election Fraud Investigation Unit.

Stay tuned!

Article: SEIU's Leon Chow Committed Possible Voter Fraud, Perjury

The San Francisco Appeal

The article about SEIU-UHW’s Leon Chow has been published… and it looks it was well worth the wait.

Chow, a top SEIU-UHW official, is trying to unseat San Francisco Supervisor John Avalos in a campaign that’s bank-rolled by SEIU-UHW and Dave Regan’s downtown business allies.

Today’s article in the San Francisco Appeal focuses on serious irregularities in Leon Chow’s residential and voting records. 

According to voting laws, Chow is supposed to actually live in the district where he casts his ballot or runs for public office. It looks like Chow may have broken both of these rules and he could be subject to felony criminal prosecution for such violations.

Here are some highlights from the article:

Less defensible is Chow's voting and residence history, which includes instances of possible voter fraud, perjury, and strong ties to Walnut Creek, where Chow said he lived while voting in San Francisco and still owns a condo, according to records.

The article cites records indicating that from 2004 to 2008, Chow registered to vote at the offices of a non-profit organization in San Francisco’s Chinatown called the Chinese Progressive Association (CPA). And he voted four times from the CPA’s offices, according to voting records that are linked to the article.  

The article continues:

California law requires voters to provide home addresses, not work addresses, when registering to vote…

Business addresses "are considered invalid" for voter registration purposes, according to John Arntz, the director of the city Elections Department.

Artnz did not comment on Chow's situation, but said in an e-mail that "it would seem a person commits perjury if he or she is registered to vote in one location and then swears under oath that he or she lives elsewhere."

Then, in 2008, Chow registered to vote at a residence in San Francisco’s District 11, where Chow is now a candidate for the Board of Supervisors. Chow’s campaign website claims he’s a "longtime" resident of the neighborhood.

The San Francisco Appeal, however, found serious contradictions in Chow’s story. In December of 2009, Chow testified in a sworn court deposition that he lived in Contra Costa County -- an entirely different county that’s many miles away -- where Chow happens to have owned a condominium since 1988 and “has conducted much of his personal affairs in Contra Costa County, including a 2005 divorce,” according to the article.

The article even features a photo of the telephone call box at Chow’s condominium complex in Contra Costa County that still features Chow’s name as the resident of Unit 26. Here’s the picture:

The electronic call box from Chow's condo in Contra Costa County.

The journalist allowed Chow to comment on his findings, and Chow serves up some super-defensive, foot-in-mouth material. For example, Chow claims he lives in an in-law apartment that’s attached to a house in District 11. The journalist checked up on Chow’s claims, and found that “all three homes are listed as single-unit dwellings, according to Assessor records.” Check out Chow's other implausible responses.

So is it really possible that Chow could face criminal prosecution? Well, check out this this article in the Los Angeles Times. In 2009, the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office charged a man with four felonies for registering to vote from his work address even though he lived in a different county. Sound familiar? 

According to the Times, the man was charged with fraudulent voter registration, fraudulent document filing, perjury and fraudulent voting. The paper noted:

A warrant was issued for his arrest and bail was set at $10,000. The offenses carry penalties of up to three years in prison.

Looks like Chow had better start looking for an attorney!

It's Election Day! SEIU and the Chamber of Commerce Get out the Vote!

A few weeks ago, Tasty shared with you that Trustee Extraordinaire Dave Regan is working against progressive candidates for the boss's organization, the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce -- as part of the so-called "Alliance for Sustainable Growth."

Well, it's not just Dave. His pal Leon Chow is getting in on it, too! 

You remember Leon, right? Leon Chow has never found a principle he couldn't compromise as long as it advances his personal career. Before the trusteeship, when Chow was a staff member at SEIU-UHW, he signed letters to SEIU President Andy Stern opposing his planned trusteeship of SEIU-UHW. Chow also criticized SEIU as undemocratic and ultimately resigned his membership in SEIU in order to protest the trusteeship.

Then, just six days after the trusteeship, Chow executed a flip-flop of gigantic proportions by signing up for a high-paying job with SEIU's trustees so he could personally implement the trusteeship! And Chow, who formerly worked for HERE, worked side-by-side with SEIU operatives to launch a multi-million-dollar raid against his former union, UNITE HERE.

Chow also sits on the board of directors of the Chinese Progressive Association in San Francisco, which claims to push for "a progressive voice for working-class Chinese immigrants." In another giant flip-flop, Chow is now happily featuring his photo alongside the President of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce on campaign literature that attacks progressive candidates running for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. 

UHW-ChamberDoorHangerSteveMossSFSupeOct2010

Who's funding the so-called "Alliance for Sustainable Growth"? According to Beyond Chron: 

Besides SEIU-UHW, funding for the Alliance for Jobs and Sustainable Growth comes from the Golden Gate Restaurant Association (GGRA), Building Owners Management Association (BOMA) and the Plumbers Union.

For those of you who remember the pre-trusteeship version of Leon Chow, he used to go head-to-head with the GGRA, the largest single donor to the failed fight against San Francisco's living wage laws.

Leon Chow's dizzying flip-flops are so extreme, it's hard to imagine what he'll do next. Tasty wouldn't be surprised if he ends up in the Human Resources Department of some big corporation... as long as it pays enough.