Yusuf Bey IV
IMAGE: Dan Rosenstrauch/Contra Costa Times/KRT

Speaking for the first time in detail about the murder of Oakland Post editor Chauncey Bailey, Alameda County District Attorney Tom Orloff said this week that there isn't enough evidence to bring charges against Yusuf Bey IV, the man at the top of the organization Bailey was investigating.

Despite a police videotape of Bey gloating as he describes Bailey's death and the murder weapon, Orloff said the evidence his office has would — at best — implicate Bey as an accessory after the fact, a crime the DA said carries a maximum sentence of three years in prison.

In an interview with The Recorder, Orloff said he isn't comfortable pursuing that charge against Bey with the evidence he's seen, and that he wouldn't want to give Bey the chance to plead guilty to a crime with a relatively light sentence if he could be implicated later as a more direct participant in the murder.

Orloff pointed out that Bey also faces a life sentence if prosecutors succeed at proving charges against him of kidnapping and torture in a separate case.

"If the aggravated kidnapping [case] did not exist, then … there'd be more effort put into seeing what you can develop with a chargeable, provable case against [Bey]," Orloff said. "There's a marginal benefit to spending a lot of resources on a case that might not be provable when you have a provable case with significantly stronger sanctions, like a possible life sentence."

Orloff's comments offer a first look at Alameda County prosecutors' strategy in one of the Bay Area's most politically charged cases in years. They also shine a light on the interplay of the two prosecutions revolving around Bey, who has been at the center of an investigation by local journalists into Bailey's assassination.

Bey, 22, the onetime head of the now-defunct Your Black Muslim Bakery in Oakland, has publicly denied a role in Bailey's death. At the time of Bailey's killing on the morning of Aug. 2, 2007, the editor of the community paper had been investigating the bakery's troubled finances.

Devaughndre Broussard, 20, a former bakery handyman, was pressured by Bey to confess to firing the three shotgun blasts that killed Bailey, said his lawyer, San Francisco-based solo LeRue Grim. Broussard was charged with the murder but has since pleaded not guilty and maintains his innocence. Broussard confessed only after Oakland police allowed Bey to talk with him, unrecorded, for seven minutes in an interrogation room, media outlets reported.

Orloff said this week there isn't an investigation "directed specifically to [proving Bey was an accessory], but as we work up the Broussard case we'll be watching what develops with reference to that."

The Chauncey Bailey Project, a collaboration of local journalists, has published numerous stories raising questions about how police conducted their investigation and why Bey hasn't been charged in connection with the murder.

Last month, the project revealed a video of Bey secretly recorded in a San Leandro police station days after Broussard's confession. In the video, Bey, who sits handcuffed in an interrogation room with two co-defendants in the kidnapping case, describes Bailey's killing in detail — mimicking the movement of the reporter's head when he was shot — and says he hid the shotgun in his closet before and after the murder.

Orloff said that there's a "substantial likelihood" that Bey would plead guilty if prosecutors charged him as an accessory.

"And if during the Broussard trial, or some other time, or independent of that, you developed evidence to charge Bey as an aider and abettor in the murder itself, you wouldn't be able to do that if he came in and pled to the accessory," Orloff said.

He said that he listened to the video months ago, without a good transcript, but that he doesn't recall Bey admitting to being directly involved and that his comments are probably inadmissible in Broussard's prosecution.

Bey told the Chauncey Bailey Project last month that he knew he was being videotaped at the time and made false statements on purpose to mislead police. Bey's attorney, Oakland-based Theodore Johnson of Summit Law Offices, did not return a phone call seeking comment Tuesday.

Christopher Lamiero, a 15-year prosecutor who is slated to prosecute both Broussard and Bey in their respective trials, said he preferred not to comment publicly on the tape's admissibility in the Broussard trial. Lamiero said detectives had recorded Bey in the hopes that he and the others would incriminate themselves in the kidnapping case.

"The fact that [Broussard] remains in custody charged with Mr. Bailey's murder speaks to the level of confidence that we have that he's responsible," Lamiero said. "And it does not mean necessarily that there are no others that share responsibility, and to that end, it should never be assumed by anyone that the investigation of this case is completed."

Grim said that Broussard will testify at his trial that he didn't shoot Bailey. Broussard will "tell everything," and will give wide-ranging testimony about Bey's influence, Grim said.

"The jury will see the total situation and be smart enough to realize who had a powerful motive to shoot [Bailey]," he said, and joked that he was confident enough in Broussard's innocence that he would get a cup of coffee while prosecutors cross-examine his client.

"They can just ask him anything, I don't care," he said.

Lamiero said Broussard's next court appearance is set for July 25, when the attorneys are to set a trial date. The kidnapping and torture case against Bey and four co-defendants is set to continue its preliminary hearing in August, he said.

Lorelei Waqia, Bailey's sister, said Tuesday from her home in Georgia that she believes Bey organized her brother's killing but that she'd at least like to see Broussard, the "trigger person," be convicted.

If Bailey's story came out, "Who would have more to lose? Bey would," she said. "And in a perfect world I would want both of them to be convicted of it. Obviously Oakland is not a perfect world."