"Beyond overcoming the odds of sustaining a construction firm in an industry dominated by major corporations, the Turner brothers are also notable for being two of the rare defendants to beat federal conspiracy charges in a 2017 criminal trial. Federal prosecutors had accused the brothers, along with a then-Oakland councilman's son, of a bid-rigging scheme to skim nearly $2 million from the U.S. Department of Energy involving a Lawrence Livermore Lab renovation contract. The public corruption investigation in the East Bay spun out of a wide-ranging probe in San Francisco that targeted Keith Jackson, a former city school board member, and ultimately brought down state Sen. Leland Yee and Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow, one of the Bay Area's most notorious organized crime leaders."
"On Monday, the council unanimously approved the legislation, first proposed by Councilmember Ken Houston, a childhood friend of the Turners who was mentored by the late patriarch Ben Turner after Houston lost his own father as a child. "They built their business on Collins Drive and stood tall when other businesses left," Houston said."
The city of Oakland will rename a small side street Turner Group Drive to honor a family-run construction company that has operated for three decades along Hegenberger Road. The Turner Group headquarters on Collins Drive sits in the neighborhood where Len and Lance Turner grew up in the 1960s. The Turner brothers kept their construction firm running amid an industry dominated by large corporations and in a commercial corridor that many considered neglected. They faced federal conspiracy charges tied to an alleged bid-rigging scheme involving nearly $2 million and a Lawrence Livermore Lab renovation contract. Jurors acquitted Lance and failed to convict Len, and the family worked to rehabilitate the firm’s reputation. The city council unanimously approved the renaming after a proposal by Councilmember Ken Houston, a childhood friend mentored by the Turners' patriarch Ben Turner.
Read at The Mercury News
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