Though disgraced former San Francisco supervisor Ed Jew is home from federal prison (where he reportedly taught yoga; the fun with this guy never ends), he's supposed to head back to county jail. But he doesn't want to! His fight in court to duck that portion of his sentence has us saying—you guessed it—Oh no, Ed Jew!
You know Jew's tragic tale, and if you don't, SFist's got seven pages of reports for catching up. But here's the short version: Ed Jew was elected as District 4 Supervisor in 2006. In May 2007, his City Hall office, his Chinatown flower shop, his house in the Sunset, and a house in Burlingame where his family lives were all raided by the FBI, because he was shaking down the proprietor of a few branches of Quickly, that bubble tea chain. I think that's when we started calling him "Tapioca Ed"?
Oh, and also? Jew didn't actually live in SF.
Along the way there were allegations of arson, crazy notes taped up on walls, a loony rally in his support, jury duty, and we could go on and on and on and on.
In April 2009, Jew was sentenced in federal court to over five years for fraud and extortion, and got an additional one year sentence in state court "for lying on election documents about residing in San Francisco."
Now, here we are, nearly five years later. According to Jew's attorney, Stuart Hanlon, who spoke with ABC7, Jew served four and a half years, much of it in a minimum security prison in Arizona, where he reportedly was "a model inmate who taught yoga in English."
"His job was, he was driver to other people, other inmates, so he had a car and keys and he drove off the prison grounds. He had total freedom," Hanlon told ABC7. That's right, "total freedom." OK!
Hanlon tells the Ex that last August, Jew was briefly transferred to a Sixth Street halfway house, but was only there for four days before "media attention" (apparently, ABC7 did a broadcast segment that is not available online) meant Jew had to be shipped to what Hanlon describes as "a maximum security lockup jail" to complete his federal sentence.
It's that last bit that has Hanlon arguing that Jew needn't serve his state sentence for the whole lying about where he lives thing, because "since Jew was not allowed to serve time in the halfway house, he should get credit for time served for his County Jail sentence."
District Attorney George Gascon seems less that impressed by this assertion, telling ABC7 that Jew needs to put in that last year, as "there's some accountability to this community that still hasn't necessarily taken place."
The Ex isn't having it, either! In an editorial published today, they say that "what needs to be ensured is that Jew serves all of the time he should for the crimes he committed."
Meanwhile, Jew remains at his Burlingame home with his wife and daughter, hoping, Hanlon says, to return to work at the family flower shop.
Oh no, Ed Jew! The same flower shop at which he was working before he went down the river? The same (showerless) flower shop where he claimed he showered, back when he was still saying he lived in SF? It sure looks that way.
