Attorney blames head injury for Ed Jew's actions
By: Joshua Sabatini
Examiner Staff Writer
March 31, 2009
SAN FRANCISCO — The former supervisor about to be sentenced for extorting money from local business owners is blaming his crimes on brain damage.
Ed Jew pleaded guilty in October to soliciting $80,000 in cash bribes from owners of Quickly tapioca-drink shops in exchange for promising to help them obtain city permits to operate legally. Jew was under FBI surveillance when he accepted $40,000 in cash as a partial payment.
U.S. District Judge Susan Illston is scheduled to sentence the former District 4 supervisor Friday for federal charges of mail fraud, bribery and extortion. Federal prosecutors are asking for a 57 month sentence.
Jew deserves leniency in his punishment, however, because he suffers from a “severe brain injury” sustained when he was struck by a motorcycle as a young boy, Jew’s attorney, Stuart Hanlon, said in a legal document filed Tuesday in federal court.
Hanlon argued that Jew should receive a sentence of one year and a day.
He deserves a break for several reasons, including “the diminished capacity under which Jew was operating, stemming from the severe brain injury,” Hanlon said in the legal filing.
As an 8-year-old, Jew and his younger sister were crossing a street in San Francisco when a motorcyclist ran a red light, according to the court filing. Jew pushed his sister to safety, “but was struck on the head by the handle bars of the motorcycle and catapulted in the air, falling on his head on the pavement.” Jew underwent “emergency brain surgery” and remained in a coma for days.
Jew’s head trauma did not end there. According to the court filing, “Ed also sustained two other head injuries, when he was struck by a truck while crossing a street and when he was beaten up by several juvenile gang members, because he refused to join a gang in high school.”
“The accumulation of head injuries, clearly the first injury being the most severe, has affected Ed’s functioning in the world,” Hanlon said in the legal filing.
Hanlon had Jew undergo a neuropsychological examination that concluded Jew’s brain damage impaired his judgment.
“His social naivete and exuberance likely endeared him to people initially, helping him to become supervisor, but ultimately contributed to his downfall when more prudent judgment and impulse control were necessary.”
Jew’s behavior “shows an impulsive, exuberant man who demanded funds thinking this would gain him the political power and notoriety he had seen others gain,” Hanlon said.
In a separate legal proceeding, Jew pleaded guilty in San Francisco Superior Court in November to lying on election-related documents about where he lived when he ran for office. Jew resigned from office as part of a settlement agreement in a third legal proceeding accusing him of violating city residency requirements.
