A look at key players in the abuse case

Contra Costa Times/February 10, 2008

  • Jane Does 1 and 2: Jane Doe 1 and her older sister, Jane Doe 2, went to live with Yusuf Bey and his family in 1978 when they were 9 and 10 years old. For 10 years, they stayed at the Bey family compound adjacent to the bakery at 5832 San Pablo Ave. or in nearby family homes. Bey sexually abused them throughout that time, they said, and they bore him five children. Doe 1 triggered the criminal case against Bey when she learned that he had molested their teenage daughter.

  • Jane Doe 3: Jane Doe 3 was a troubled 13-year-old when she went to work at the bakery in 1994. Within a week, Yusuf Bey began sexually assaulting her and sending men to fetch her when she failed to show up for work, she said. Doe 3 left the bakery in 1995 and told her probation officer about the Yusuf Bey assaults. The probation officer filed a police report in 1996 that became part of the criminal case against Yusuf Bey in 2002.

  • Jane Doe 4: Jane Doe 4 told police Yusuf Bey sexually abused her as a minor as recently as 1995, and her testimony became part of the criminal case against him. Friends said she fears retribution from bakery associates and has moved abroad.

  • Nora Bey: Nora Bey lived and worked at the bakery from about 1968 to 1988, beginning when she was 14 years old. Throughout that time, Yusuf Bey sexually and physically abused her, she said, and she bore him three children. At his direction, she became the legal guardian for Jane Does 1 and 2, and for years she collected monthly welfare payments for them that she gave to Yusuf Bey.

  • Yusuf Bey: Yusuf Bey became one of the most politically powerful black businessmen in Oakland between 1970 and 2003, as he built a chain of bakeries and other businesses with the help of his large family and ex-cons who needed work. A Black Muslim, he taught self-sufficiency, hatred of whites and Jews and submission of women in his Sunday sermons, which were open to the public and which he paid to have broadcast on local cable television. He fathered at least 42 children with 14 women and girls, The Chauncey Bailey Project has documented. In 2002, he was arrested and charged with sexually abusing minors for 20 years. He died of cancer at age 67 in 2003, before the case proceeded to trial.

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