[UPDATE] Jerome Soh convicted

[G3-TEG]

More info here:
http://c-speedracing.com/bbs/Forum5/HTML/000252.html

[Marc]

A rebuttal from Jerome:
http://hybrid.honda-perf.org/alley/messages/249.shtml

To all you people who can't mind your own business and love to see people
like me go down because it makes you feel better about yourself, you need
to read this. I don't know where to start because there are so many things
on my mind. I have not officially been convicted of anything since there
are still post trial motions to be heard so I cannot comment as much as
I'd like. We also still have the appeal. However, I will say a few words.

1. This whole thing started in July 2000 because some guy named J.C. (I am
only going to use initials in this message and may reveal names later) who
drives a black honda civic coupe got caught with a stolen motor in his car
and agreed to work for the Washington State Patrol (WSP) in exchange for
not being charged. He was instructed to arrange to sell motors to me in an
undercover sting operation. Regardless of what has been said before, he
never said they were stolen and the motors were never represented to be
stolen. In fact, they always had missing or broken parts like mounts,
wiring with broken and cut plugs, bent shift linkage, sensors, throttle
body, and in one case, a rock solid rusted clutch frozen to the rusted
flywheel. All these parts were consistent with what I would get from a
wrecking yard. Furthermore, he drove a flatbed truck and had these heavy
duty gloves that were consistent with an employee at a yard. You just do
NOT drive a flatbed truck as your daily driver unless u work at a place
like a yard. If these motors were suppose to be stolen "last night" then
one would think that they would have all the parts and not have anything
preventing them from running. One of the motors had a messed up wiring
harness and would not be able to start. The cops represent one thing in
their affadavits to get wiretaps and search warrants, and give me
something else. To make a long story short, they eventually get a search
warrant on Dec. 1st and make the arrest and charges of conspiracy,
trafficking, and possession of stolen property. The motors were from
recovered stolen vehicles and therefore were not even stolen. All 9 of
these charges were eventually dismissed.

2. It would later be discovered that J.C., while WORKING for the WSP,
continued to side job by stealing or helping to steal more cars and doing
an insurance fraud on his own car. He was fired by WSP this past winter
and now faces exposure on those acts as well as acts he was suppose to get
off on in exchange for his work. The WSP cannot even control their
own "informants" yet they use them to target innocent people like me.

3. A guy named B.W. in Spokane was caught running a chop shop. He was
caught with parts from 15 cars in his shop at the time of the search
warrant. B.W. has testified under oath that he has stole about 3-4 cars
and instructed others to steal 15-20 more. He was granted "federal
immunity" in exchange for his testimony against me and any others that the
cops may need him for. J.C. and J.T. (who I will talk about later) bought
motors from Brad and resold them for profit (some of them to me).

4. Finally, we have an individual named J.T., who runs a website that many
of you visit. He's managed to pull the wool over your eyes. His website is
h----site.com. I met him in May of 2000. He contacted me wanting to sell
me a motor. I told him I wasn't interested but he could advertise it for
free on my classifieds (http://www.sohfast.com/classified.htm)

and could
probably get $3000 for it. One month passes by and he contacts me again
saying he could not sell it and if I was still interested. I happened to
have a race in Seattle that week and agreed to stop by his place to take a
look. I told him I would not be able to pay as much as he could get if he
sold privately because I need to make a markup on it. When I got there, he
actually had a blown up shortblock and longblock for sale as well. He set
the package price of $3000 for a changeover (not as complete as what I get
elsewhere), a blown shortblock, and longblock. I did not set the price.
Furthermore, he stated the shortblock came out of his own car, and the
longblock and changeover came from a friend's car (I guess he upgraded to
a Type R or Prelude). 3 weeks pass by. J.T. calls me from Bush Collision
where he works and tells me he has a 94 GSR changeover for sale. This one
sells for $2200, about the same as what I would pay at a yard taking into
account all the parts I would get and the fact shipping ($300) was
included in the prices I paid at yards. The main reason I wanted to have a
few in stock in Blaine was so that I would have control over the shipping
process for the nitpicky customers that can't afford down time. Often,
when I get motors from yards and have them drop shipped, parts are often
broken or missing and the customer has down time while I locate the parts
and ship them to him. With about 4 motors on hand locally, I can package
them myself and have full control over what is sent. Anyways, since J.T.
called from a body shop, I figured he had connections with that shop and
was getting his motors from them. 3 weeks after that in August, J.T. calls
me up saying that he blew up his motor racing and he wanted $1800 for it
provided that I pay for the parts needed to fix it. I pay $450 in parts
from Bellevue Acura and deduct $600 for some clutches that J.T. bought, so
the net price paid was $750. It turns out J.T. did not fix the motor
properly and did not include about $800 worth of parts (like axles, shift
linkage, etc.) and claimed that the shipping company lost them (which in
hindsight I think is B.S., but at the time I trusted him). I had to incurr
about $1000 in expenses shipping the motor back and paying for labour to
install a new motor for the poor customer who got this motor. Later in the
month, J.T. would go into Bellevue Acura, claimed he worked for
Sohfast.com, and charge about $400 worth of parts to my credit card. At
first he denied it, but upon pressing both Bellevue Acura and him on the
issue, he would later say that he told his friend to get some parts for
him using his own account at another dealership but that his
friend "accidently" put it on my Bellevue Acura account instead. I was
naive enough to believe him at the time, but in hindsight, that was
clearly B.S. He purposely charged parts for himself on my credit card. The
Bellevue manager was adamant that he saw a yellow 99-00 Honda Civic Si
pull up to get the parts, and J.T. drove that car, not his friend. Next,
we have a transaction on September 5th for $4800, $2500 for a Prelude
changeover and $2300 for a GSR changeover. The amount paid was $4400,
because J.T. agreed to cover the $400 for the Bellevue Acura incident. The
Prelude was missing all mounts, exhaust manifold and downpipe, and many
other minor items (it adds up when u have to buy them new). He tells me
specifically that he got them from his Uncle's wrecking yard, U Fix It
Auto Wrecking. In the past couple of transactions, he was also asking me
advice on starting up his own business, h----site.com. I told him how to
get a business license and how to setup wholesale accounts with suppliers
like ACT, Crower, etc. At that point, I firmly believed I was dealing with
a legitimate businessman. The axles from the GSR were actually rusted so
bad that they could not be removed from the knuckles. I have never run
into something like that in my life thus far. I hammered and hammered and
hammered until the ends of the axles were completely mushroomed out. This
is consistent with a motor from a wrecking yard exposed to wet conditions
for an extended period of time. This concludes the dealings I had with J.T.

5. J.T. testified under oath that he was caught stealing a car and
alluding police in April of 2000. He eventually outran the cop and ran off
into the woods. He was turned in the next day by the passenger in his car.
In exchange for not charging him, he was suppose to work for the WSP for 1
year helping them catch people with stolen motors in their cars. He would
eventually help them catch 3 people. J.T. testified that he had stolen
about 20 cars prior to this incident and that he would be able to "work it
off" by helping the WSP. However, by the summer of 2000, J.T. would return
to his normal ways WHILE working for the WSP. He admitted under oath to
stealing ANOTHER 20 cars in about 2 months (that's one every 3 days).
That's 40 cars so far. Chances are if you had your car stolen in WA, J.T.
either stole it or had something to do with it. Later when J.T. was
arrested in December, he was charged with stealing 6-7 more cars after the
summer 20 car spree in addition to the possession charges for the motors
he sold to me. It could be over 50 cars, but I think it's safe to say he
stole at least 40 cars. At 3 months per charge, he had an exposure of over
10 years in prison.

6. At first, J.T. and I were suppose to be "codefendants" on the
possession charges. However, over the next couple of months, detective L---
-di would make frequent visits to J.T. and take 3 recorded statements as
well as several untaped statements and general conversations, trying to
dig up dirt on me. J.T. testified he never told me the motors were stolen
but would not admit to the Sept. 5th incident where he told me they were
from his uncle's wrecking yard and did not tell L----di about the body
shop or his website, h----site.com. Mysteriously, the charges for car
theft disappeared until he was left with 6 charges. Meanwhile, I was
facing 7 charges of possession and 1 charge of conspiracy. J.T. now had
LESS charges than me. Then, just on the EVE of trial, L----di DRIVES J.T.
up for a pretial interview (I would have liked to have been privy to the 2
hour conversation that took place during that drive) and all of a sudden
J.T. has this incredible memory recollection about how he once told me a
motor was stolen and that "I didn't care." So 3 taped statements and
several meetings with L----di and only on the last interview does he
somehow "remember" this incident. Furthermore, he's already confessed to
all his crimes and doesn't really need to go to trial... but, without
court order, his trial mysteriously gets moved 1 month ahead of mine to
April 23rd.

7. At trial, 2 of the charges eventually get dropped so I was facing 6
charges and Thomas 4. The conspiracy count was dismissed so I was left
with 5. There was an under the table deal setup between the prosecutor and
J.T. attorney, although they continue to deny it heavily. This was setup
so that J.T. could "come clean" and appear credible to the Jury like he
had no motivation to testify. His later trial date would enable the
prosecution to evaluate his testimony and give him the
appropriate "leniency" for the sentencing on the 4 counts he faced.
Similar to the famous Johnny Cochran line "if the glove don't fit, you
gotta acquit", for J.T., it was "if you don't produce, we won't reduce."
Oh, and he produced all right.

8. B.W.'s bail was originally at $25,000 but he got out on $0 bail after
agreeing to help police. I don't know what J.C.'s bail was, but I think it
was $0 as well. J.T.'s bail was set at $0. He got some P.R. arrangement
where he was supposed to report where was on a weekly basis or something
like that. My bail was originally set at $500,000.

9. B.W. did not have his car forfeited. J.C. and J.T. both had STOLEN
motors in their cars at the time of their arrests, but to the best of my
knowledge, neither of their cars were forfeited. The police did not even
have a search warrant for my car, and wanted to check the numbers on my
engine and tranny. I agreed to let them run the numbers because I thought
I would be seen as being cooperative which would help the situation, but
instead they wanted to f$ck me over and forfeited my car when everything
in it was legit. Furthermore, there were about 10 cops and 1 of them
pointed a gun at my head. I was under duress to say the least.

10. In an affadavit to secure a wire on me, they said that I was a member
of an asian gang, dangerous, and had the capability to commit homicides
and were afraid of me harming their informants or undercover officers.
Notice that the 3 "informants" they used to get me are all white and I'm
chinese. Couple that with the $500,000 bail and car forfeiture and I smell
racial discimination.

11. They are basically willing to do anything and everything to f$ck me
over, even though I'm innocent. The trial showed they are willing to lie,
cheat, and let a guy facing 10 years in prison off on what is rumoured to
be 1-2 misdemeanors to put me in prison. They even had the nerve to argue
that I'm at the top of the "pyramid or food chain", and that if I didn't
exist, the chop shop would not have been set up, and J.T. would not have
stolen those 40 cars. They said it was all my fault. They considered B.W.,
J.C., and J.T. "petty thieves that they don't like to waste time with" and
me the "king pin" directing and motivating these people to commit these
crimes. Petty Thieves? You call a guy that steals over 40 cars a petty
thief? I'd like to see them argue that to the 40 people who got their cars
stolen. I didn't even know two of these people for Christ's sake, and the
3rd, J.T., I only called twice for some computers. J.T. ALWAYS CALLED ME,
not the other way around. They f$cked up by not putting these crooks in
jail the first time, but it's never their fault, so of course they
conviently blame me.

12. I've spent over $70,000 US fighting this, while J.T. gets a court
appointed public defender for free.

13. In closing arguments, the prosecutor brought up something on 1 of the
recorded conversations I had with J.C. We are talking about a 98 GSR ECU,
but he said he only had a 94-95 GSR ECU. I then asked him how I could tell
since there was no label on the ECU. He then said he just "stacked" them
and later clarified he "had a stack." (meaning he would put the GSR
computers in a stack, Civic computers in another stack, etc... similar to
what I do actually). The prosecutor suggested to the jury that J.C. said
he "jacked" them and that the label we were talking about was shaved
numbers on the engine. This piqued the curiousity of the jury, even though
this event took place 2 months after the last Sept. 5th transaction that
was charged. They deliberated for 2 days and were in my favour to acquit,
but then requested to listen to the tape. Although the tape clearly showed
the word was "stacked", the jury misinterpreted the label to be one on the
engine and convicted on two counts. There was also another major
assumption made by the jury that they later found out to be false. They
were in my favour 9-3 and 10-2 on 3 counts and against me 10-2 and 9-3 on
2 counts, but it was this tape that cracked the last 2-3 jurors on the 2
counts I'm tentatively convicted on. After my attorney's spoke to them
after the trial, they found out a major assumption they made to be false
and felt very badly about being deceived by the prosecutor. Many of them
said the 3 counts would have likely gone to acquittal and the 2 counts
would have been deadlocked or maybe even acquittal after further
deliberation. They did NOT know about the under the table deal with J.T.,
they assumed J.C. and I were talking about missing engine numbers, and
also made 1 other MAJOR assumption which I cannot get into here.

14. The FBI did an extensive investigation on the motors that were shipped
out from my place in Blaine. They came up with 3 stolen motors and several
legitimate motors. BOTH of the counts that I am tentatively convicted on
were not confirmed stolen by this investigation. The first one was not
even a 94 GSR for crying out loud. It says that on the business check I
wrote J.T. but he brought up a different year motor. The second motor, the
one he said was from U Fix It Auto Wrecking... J.C. communicated the
numbers to the cops during the first transaction he had with me. The cops
ran the numbers and it came up legit. They then made the excuse that they
may have recorded the numbers wrong. It was argued in court
that "everything that J.T. touched much have been stolen" and therefore
the jury assumed that both these motors were stolen when they might not
even be. It's what they call "Corpus De Lecti" (sp?) where they try to
convict somebody of murder when they don't yet have a dead body. We don't
even know if the motors are stolen.

15. There are innocent people every day who are convicted of crimes they
did not commit. I think 1 person per week walks off death row because DNA
exonerated them. Yet the people that wrongly prosecuted them don't give a
sh$t. They go home to their families, have dinner, and think nothing of
it. To them, these people are just another case they wanted to win to add
to their "portfolio" of wins. Their's no accountability and that pisses me
off. Until you experience a "trial" (and they call it a TRIAL for good
reason), you just don't know how predatory the system is, especially to
successful people. They get off on trying to bring down successful people
(look what happened to Puff Daddy, Ray Lewis, Clinton, Mark Chumara) at
almost all costs, including lying, cheating, and aiding and abetting other
people to do the same.

16. I recommend that anybody who is going to bad mouth me first read the
transcipts of this trial to see what a complete injustice has been done to
me. Then, and only then, should you comment on my character. For those of
you like R--ster who want to call me a silly schuck and other demeaning
things, you can go f$ck yourself. At least have the guts to say it to my
face and not behind that computer of yours.

Sincerely,

Jerome Soh www.sohfast.com


------------------
Marc
1997 Civic EX
The supercharger is gone and so is my civic. Damn thieves!
Want to know why I got rid of the JRSC? http://crx.honda-perf.org/horror/jrsc.html

Now I have a Mitsubishi Eclipse GSX. All wheel drive/turbocharged/intercooled. WAAAHHH.....PSSSHHTTTT! YEAH BAY-BEE!

[This message has been edited by Marc (edited April 08, 2001).]

[MouhadIb]

Yep,

I am by Jerome also. He's helpepd me out in the past by getting my hatch squared away. I don't think that he is the type of person that will put up stolen parts for sale over the internet!??

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It take a Nation of Millions to hold Us Back!!!




[This message has been edited by MouhadIb (edited April 08, 2001).]

[90teg]

Yah I am with Jerome also, I almost bought a 96Ls motor from him but I found a better deal locally. He was very prompt and was willing to ship the motor asap and offered to help me make sure it was not damaged and installed properly.

I have bought stuff from hime since 1998 and he always came through. Once he even accepeted a personal chech that(cough) bounce for some stupid reson and he did not even get concerned. I told him I would send a money order + $10 extra (for a $25 part) bacause of the incident. He was kind and did not try to get over on me. I prefer his customer service over a Blockbuster video rental.

It's a shame that there are punk asses out there that don't know how to work for the things they want and resort to stealing. I don't remember hearing the V8 crowd complaining about stolen motors and all these type of conspiracies, but in this Import hotrodding scene there are tooooooo many shady Motherfckers. I am 22now and started getting into the Import scence back in 1996 when I was 17yrs old. If I could tell you guys of all the shady people I dealt with and why they were that way.......(some that were supposed to be close friends) I won't comment about any racial dealings but I will say they know who they are and what they represent.

[Holden]

It's fucked up, but what Jerome says the cops did strikes of truth. I can't believe people get convicted every day based on the testimony of criminals who just want to get their own ass off the hook.

This is one of the reasons I give money to the ACLU.

Good luck Jerome, if you're reading.

Greg

[VTECPWR]

I never bought anything from Jerome but he was always helpful, and an all around good guy.

I am usually against any charges of racism, most of them are BS and made by some whinner that wants everything handed to him. But this is a F***ed up situation.

Good Luck Jerome.

[Peyomp]

I realize that the cops will do anything to convict you once they think you are guilty, and that mayb ehe is getting a seriously fucked up deal. I've seen it happen before.

But: Having some experience with salvaging automobiles for their engines here is the great state of Georgia, I have to say that unless Washington law is MUCH different than Ga law, he did it to himself. In Georgia, you have to clear an automobile and engine code with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation before you sell it. This is done to prevent the sale of stolen parts and to protect engine/salvage dealers from just this sort of thing.

I don't know anything about this person, but I ask you this:

If Wa law is ANYTHING like Ga law, then why the fuck didn't he run the numbers on the engines to see if they were stolen?


[This message has been edited by Peyomp (edited April 08, 2001).]

[fastfour]

I'm by Jerome all the way. I've done business with him for a long time and know what he is about. He is getting a raw deal here and anyone that knows anything about him at all knows he is not capable of what he is being charged for. He is a first rate guy with a successful business that I hope stays intact. Godspeed to you Jerome.

Zach

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94 Civic Coupe/LS Hybrid
JRSC@6psi
Turbo Convert
Import Specialty Automotive (253) 473-2606

[[MacGyver]]

I have done business with Jerome he is an Upstanding guy. And i Fully beleive that he is innocent.



------------------
Matt Hutchins
Http://www.asrimports.com

[TurboAce]

I done business with Jerome many times and he has always been very helpful and everything always went smoothly. His customer service is top notch, it hard to find that anywhere. I think its bulls**t what they are doing to you.

Asa

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95 Integra GS-R
Built motor, Rev-Hard manifold, XS-Engineering T04X turbo and intercooler, Tial wastegate, STR intake manifold, RC 550cc injectors, DFI.
11.57 @ 124mph

95 Toyota Supra TT -(HKS Twin Turbo Upgrade)
00 Mercedes ML 430