Chinatown Restaurant Owner, Son Indicted on Bribery, Conspiracy Charges

The owner of a popular Chinatown restaurant and his son were indicted Tuesday on bribery and conspiracy charges.

Anthony “Tony” Cheng, 65, and his son, 39-year-old Anthony Cheng Jr., sought to illegally obtain taxicab licenses, prosecutors said.

Tony Cheng's downtown restaurant has been a popular gathering place for decades, and Cheng is well-known in city political circles. In the indictment, prosecutors say he and his son conspired in 2011 to get around a taxi moratorium by backdating documents and offering $1,500 and 10 percent of their profits to the head of the city's taxi commission, who called in the FBI.

The indictment said the conspiracy included bribes by the son to "Public figure Number One," who sources say was former taxi chairman Leon Swain.

Ken Robinson, the Chengs' attorney, said about 10 conversations between his clients and Swain were captured on tape by Swain, the Associated Press reported.

“Our contention is they never paid a bribe, but we'll explain when the jury hears the tapes what's being discussed,” Robinson said Tuesday. “They never sought any kind of improper payment or improper quid pro quo.”

In 2009, two years before the Cheng case, Swain publicly acknowledged working undercover for the FBI in a separate taxi corruption investigation that led to the conviction of Councilmember Jim Graham's former chief of staff Ted Loza, who was charged with bribery but pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of accepting an illegal gratuity.

The Cheng case is related to but separate from a wide-ranging probe of corruption in the District by U.S. Attorney Ronald Machen -- a probe that includes campaign finance schemes and a shadow campaign to help elect Mayor Vincent Gray in 2010. The city can't tolerate "the culture of pay to play," Machen said in a statement.

Tony Cheng faces one count each of bribery and conspiracy. His son faces two counts of bribery and one count of conspiracy to commit bribery.

Tony Cheng, an immigrant from China who lives in Alexandria, Va., has held numerous political fundraisers over the years at his restaurant, which is decorated with pictures of him with elected officials and other dignitaries. He and his wife have contributed money to local politicians including former mayors Anthony Williams and Adrian Fenty and current councilmembers Jack Evans and Vincent Orange.

Robinson said law enforcement officials attempted to secure the Chengs' cooperation in a broader probe of corruption in city politics, but the Chengs refused.

“The FBI knows Tony Cheng knows all of these people because every one of them for 40 years has been coming into his restaurant, and he's done fundraisers for all of them in a proper and legal way,” Robinson said. “They tried to get him to cooperate, and both he and his son refused to cooperate because they contend that they've never done anything corrupt with any of these politicians either, so they're not going to start lying about things to get out of this predicament.”

Robinson said he and his clients had been in plea negotiations with prosecutors since January and that they rejected a final offer about two weeks ago.

The Chengs also conspired to pay a $250 bribe to an undercover agent posing as an official in the district's Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs, the indictment says. The younger Cheng paid that amount to the agent in cash, according to the indictment.

Evans, the councilmember whose ward includes Chinatown, said he was surprised by the allegations.

“He's always been very supportive of causes, particularly charity causes, and he seemed like he was doing quite well, so it surprises me that he would be indicted for trying to bribe someone on the taxicab commission,” Evans said. “It doesn't make any sense.”