RANDY ECONOMY: MY WORLD: YOUNG LEE: Pinkberry Founder Charged with Assault; Pinkberry goes on "damage control"

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

YOUNG LEE: Pinkberry Founder Charged with Assault; Pinkberry goes on "damage control"

I guess I won't be eating that "killer" frozen treats over at Pinkberry anymore. I remember when they opened up their first store on Santa Monica Boulevard. Anyway....Young Lee, the founder of the MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR COMPANY is in a heap (not scoop) of trouble....

Here is the official details from the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office and below is a statement from Pinkberry via Facebook.

LOS ANGELES – One of the founders of the Pinkberry yogurt stores is scheduled to be arraigned Feb. 6 for allegedly beating a transient with a tire iron, breaking his arm and causing several lacerations to his head, the District Attorney’s office announced. Young Lee, 47 (dob 9-6-64), was arrested Monday on a felony complaint for arrest warrant filed Dec. 28, 2011 by the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office. Lee was released on $60,000 bail. Lee is charged in case BA392191 with one felony count of assault with a deadly weapon, a tire iron, with a special allegation that the assault caused great bodily injury. Prosecutors said Lee allegedly parked the car he was driving on Vermont Avenue near the Hollywood Freeway offramp shortly after 3 p.m. on June 15, 2011. Lee and a second unidentified suspect got out of the vehicle and confronted the victim because Lee thought the victim had disrespected him by exposing a sexually explicit tattoo. Lee allegedly used a tire iron to beat the victim on his head and arm. The victim sustained a broken left forearm and several cuts to his head. Several witnesses who saw the assault called police and provided the vehicle’s license number. LAPD officers investigated the incident and identified Lee as one of the suspects. Lee, who was convicted of felony possession of a controlled substance and misdemeanor carrying a loaded firearm in 2001, is facing up to seven years in state prison if convicted. He is due in court on Feb. 6 at the Criminal Justice Center, 210 West Temple St., in Department 30 for arraignment sometime after 8:30 a.m.

Now, Pinkberry has issued the following statement via Facebook this afternoon....

We are aware of the news that’s circulating about Mr. Young Lee. Earlier today, we tried to connect with each of you that posted to our wall about this issue, but feel that we need to address it more broadly within our community. Young Lee has no involvement with Pinkberry, our partners or our more than 170 stores world-wide. Pinkberry ended its ties with Mr. Lee formally on May 1, 2010. He has noinfluence or input into the company in any way, and the parties have not been in communication with one another since Mr. Lee’s exit. While it would be inappropriate for us to speculate on the allegations in question, we can say without hesitation that Pinkberry values the communities we serve and stands against acts of violence of any kind, especially those involving the most vulnerable among us.

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You may know me from my role as the Senior Advisor and Official Media Spokesman for the Recall Gavin Newsom campaign that established a worldwide blitz of interviews. I conducted more than 2,200 media interviews on behalf of “The People’s Recall” during a 10-month period from November 2020 to September 2021. The iconic magazine Mother Jones in a dramatic feature article called me “A ‘Superhero Pirate’ Radio Host, (and) Gavin Newsom’s Strangest—and Most Dangerous—Threat. Meet Randy Economy, the man behind the effort to recall California’s governor.” I appeared on more than 330 media outlets around the world in my capacity with RecallGavin2020. Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, Newsmax, NBC Nightly News, ABC News, as well as the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Politico, and dozens of other media outlets aired featured reports on my work on behalf of “The People’s Recall.” I am and will always consider myself to be a journalist. Sometimes I think I bleed ink. My talents as an Investigative Journalists in California earned me FIVE top awards from the prestigious Los Angeles Press Club in 2013, 2014, and 2016. I am tenacious. My reporting over the years has led to the prosecution of several elected officials in California. While working for a tiny community newspaper in Southeast Los Angeles County, I worked doggedly to expose the biggest public corruption case in Los Angeles County history when I unearthed a massive pay to play scheme inside the Assessor’s Office that led to the arrest of then Assessor John R. Noguez and four others. However, politics has been in my DNA since I was a child. I have worked on more than 300 political campaigns as a consultant and advisor since 1982 for candidates from all sides of the political spectrum including Democrats and Republicans, and even Libertarians. I am also a small business owner, serving as the President and CEO of Hot Water Studio & Production, LLC. My company works with media outlets across the state, nation, and world exposing public corruption via several new media platforms. I have also overcome personal challenges. I am legally blind with zero vision in my right eye and only 40 percent vision remaining in my left eye. I sometimes wear an eyepatch due to my failed vision. (Hence the nickname of “America’s Political Pirate.”