COURT UPHOLDS COCAINE CONVICTION

A federal appellate court in San Francisco has upheld the cocaine
conviction of a criminal associate of accused Chinatown gangster
Raymond Chow.

In its ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals found that the conviction of
Annie Ma was proper and that the jurors who found her guilty had not
misunderstood the nature of the criminal conspiracy charges she faced.

Ma was indicted in 1992. According to federal court records, she was a
member of a San Francisco underworld organization headed by Chow and
Peter Chong. The gang, loosely affiliated with similar organizations
in Hong Kong, was known as the Wo Hop To triad.

According to federal indictments issued in the early 1990s, the Wo Hop
To attempted to dominate the San Francisco crime scene in the early
1990s, murdering members of rival groups and engaging in drug
trafficking, illegal weapons deals, contract murder, arson and other
crimes.

At the same time that Ma was sentenced to a year in federal prison for
drug sales, Chow was found guilty of illegal weapons sales. He is
still awaiting trial on racketeering charges. Chong allegedly fled
the country to avoid prosecution and is believed to be in Hong Kong.