Daly City Dentist Accused Of Conspiring With Leland Yee To Traffic Firearms Dies
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) -- A Daly City dentist accused of participating in a conspiracy with indicted state Sen. Leland Yee to import illegal weapons from the Philippines died early Tuesday, his attorney said Wednesday.
Wilson Lim died at Kindred Hospital in San Leandro early Tuesday morning, according to San Francisco attorney Brian Getz. Getz said today he will file a motion to have Lim's indictment dismissed.
Lim had been in intensive care at Seton Medical Center in Daly City since June 18 suffering congestive heart failure, renal failure and liver failure, and was described by doctors as "gravely ill," according to court records.
He was wheelchair-bound in his initial appearance in federal court shortly after his arrest in March and was released on an unsecured $50,000 bond.
Lim operated a dental practice in Daly City.
"He should be remembered as a tireless community contributor who took care of people's dental needs whether or not they could pay," Getz said.
But Lim's name will undoubtedly come up again as the case against Yee progresses. Lim was named in a 228-count indictment as the principal contact for an alleged deal to sell weapons from the Philippines to an undercover FBI agent posing as a Mafioso.
The federal indictment was the result of a years-long investigation into alleged criminal activities by Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow and his Chee Kung Tong organization.
While Lim was not accused of having direct connections to the Tong, FBI agents who had infiltrated the organization eventually were introduced to Yee and former San Francisco school board president Keith Jackson, who in March allegedly devised a scheme with Lim to illegally import weapons from a revolutionary group in the Philippines.
Lim was Yee's contact for the weapons deal and was allegedly going to provide a revolutionary group seeking to overthrow the Philippine government with a list of weapons in exchange for cash, according to a federal affidavit unsealed shortly after his arrest.
The FBI agent was seeking weapons including machine guns and shoulder-mounted rocket launchers and told Yee and Jackson he wanted to ship the weapons through family connections he had in Newark, New Jersey. He was prepared to pay $2 million in cash for the purchase, according to the affidavit.
The deal never materialized as Yee, Jackson and Lim were all arrested later that month.
No one has yet gone to trial in the massive conspiracy and racketeering indictment as federal prosecutors continue to turn over voluminous evidence to dozens of defense attorneys in the case. The next hearing before U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer, the trial judge assigned to the case, is scheduled for Nov. 12.
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