Former Assembly Speaker Charged With Taking Bribe

Former state Assembly Speaker Brian Setencich has been accused in a federal indictment of taking a $6,000 bribe when he was a Fresno city councilman.

Setencich, 36, now works for the city of San Francisco, whose mayor, Willie Brown, engineered Setencich’s brief stint as speaker in 1995.

The indictment, returned by a federal grand jury Thursday and released Friday, charges Setencich and Fresno businessman Robert Yang, 38, with bribery and mail fraud.

The indictment says that in 1993, when Setencich was on the Fresno City Council, he accepted $6,000 from Yang for arranging to reduce or waive rental fees for use of city facilities.

Yang used the Fresno Convention Center for the Hmong International New Year’s celebration in December 1993, the indictment says.

The document also accuses Setencich of preparing false invoices to disguise the payments. Setencich and Yang were charged with one count each of bribery and mail fraud. Yang was also charged with witness tampering.

The maximum penalty for bribery or witness tampering is 10 years in prison, three years of supervised release and a $250,000 fine. The penalty for mail fraud is five years in prison, three years of supervised release and a $250,000 fine.

Setencich was a Republican freshman in September 1995 when he accepted the speakership of a narrowly divided Assembly with the backing of Brown and other Democrats. He was speaker only until January 1996, when Republicans won a majority through a special election and elected their own speaker.

Republicans labeled Setencich a traitor. He was defeated in the 1996 GOP primary and as a write-in candidate in the general election.

Brown hired Setencich, a former professional basketball player in Europe, in November 1997 to a $65,000-a-year job as liaison officer for San Francisco’s 911 emergency system.

Attempts to reach Setencich at his San Francisco office Friday were unsuccessful.