A Hayward police officer faces felony charges for allegedly extorting an illegal brothel and taking a $1,000 bribe and free sex services in exchange for protection against police investigations, and he could face up to four years in prison if convicted.

Hayward police officer Benjamin Yarbrough, 48, faces felony charges, with the potential of four years in prison, for allegedly extorting a brothel operator in exchange for protection. Prosecutors say he received $1,000 and sexual services using his position to provide tips about law enforcement activity, investigate competitors, and influence official duties, as KTVU reports.

"Officer Yarbrough’s actions appeared to act in support of the trafficking operation and to disrupt competing illicit businesses," a probable cause declaration stated, per KTVU.

As Bay Area News Group reports, surveillance photos matched in-person visits to the brothel at 22200 Main Street with text messages sent between March 12 and April 1, 2025, investigators said. Yarbrough allegedly used his personal and work cellphones to arrange sexual encounters and a $1,000 payment in exchange for protecting the business, while reassuring operator Yangiong Xiong that he was a “friend.”

One message read, according to investigators, "I don’t bust, I protect and keep safe."

Yarbrough denied receiving money, having sex with anyone at the brothel, knowing Xiong, or providing protection, according to the declaration reviewed by Bay Area News Group. Xiong identified Yarbrough in a photo and gave a statement consistent with the text messages, adding that the $1,000 — ten $100 bills in a red envelope — was given along with access to women to avoid police action.

It should be noted that, as KTVU reports, Yarbrough is the brother-in-law of Hayward Police Chief Bryan Matthews, who said the department learned of the investigation in July and immediately contacted the district attorney because of the family connection.

"After learning this information, and because of my familial relationship with Officer Yarbrough, I immediately contacted Alameda County District Attorney Ursula Jones Dickson and requested her office conduct the criminal investigation," Matthews said in a statement.

Yarbrough was placed on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigations, and Internal Affairs is conducting an administrative review of possible policy violations.

“As police officers, we are held to a higher standard and the allegations in this case, if proven to be true, strike at the core of who we are as a profession,” Matthews said. “They are not representative of the dedicated, professional men and women of the Hayward Police Department or the policing profession.”

As Bay Area News Group reports, the latest allegations are linked to a San Jose police investigation last year into a residential brothel called "Hestia ACU Wellness," which led to Xiong’s arrest in June 2025 for running an illegal brothel. Investigators seized 11 cellphones and found numbers linked to other suspected brothels, including one in Hayward at 22283 Main Street called "Flame ACU Wellness."

A forensic review of the phones showed communication between Yarbrough and Xiong, leading authorities to open an investigation into Yarbrough.

Related:SF Finally Shuts Down Tenderloin Massage Parlor That Was ‘Blatantly Operating as a Brothel’

Your daily dose of gross comes from Fremont today, where the Chronicle reports on a 33-year-old man who's accused of secretly videotaping his roommates having sex and then attempting to extort them for thousands of dollars and more sex, except this time with him. The suspect is Maninder Adama (pictured below) who allegedly made the secret recordings in March and April of this year when the unnamed victims shared an apartment on the 3500 block of Pennsylvania Avenue in Fremont with Adama and his wife. He then tried to blackmail the couple with the footage, despite the fact that they were a romantically involved couple who lived together.

NBC Bay Area has the real money shot here — they confronted Adama as he walked out of Fremont Superior Court and asked him if he really did take secret video of his roommates having sex. “No I didn't," Adama said, and then immediately backtracked. "Actually, there's a reason for the camera there," he said, before hightailing it off without further comment.

The Fremont Police Department has a lengthy Facebook post describing the case (and oh, the comments are delicious). The victims, both in their 20s, apparently lived in the Pennsylvania Avenue apartment in Fremont from mid-March to late April of this year. “The living arrangement was one that was shared and several other people also lived in the [two-bedroom] apartment,” the Fremont PD says in the post. “In mid-June the victim couple began receiving messages from an unknown email address. The sender claimed to be in possession of a video which depicted the victim couple engaging in sexual acts together. The suspect emailed the victims multiple times and included screen shots of video as proof. Based upon the positioning of the video and the setup of the room, the victims believed they must have been recorded while living in the shared apartment on Pennsylvania Ave.”

The anonymous emails first demanded $2,000 in exchange for the video, then upped the demand to $5,000, then changed tack and went the indecent proposal route. “They had a video of the couple engaged in sex acts and if they didn't pay $5,000 they were going to release it to Facebook and tag them and send it to family members,” Fremont police detective Michael Gebhardt told ABC 7. “And then it turned to the suspect was saying, ‘well, I won’t release the video if you have sex with me for one night.’”

Smooth operator!

This smoothness of the suspect’s operating was hampered by his lack of knowledge of the digital footprints left by his use of photos with the metadata still intact, plus location information embedded in his emails.

According to CBS 5, police served a warrant last Thursday on Adama’s apartment and recovered the video, seizing several laptops and a smartphone. He was arrested on multiple counts of felony extortion and several invasion of privacy misdemeanor counts.

Adama has no criminal history, though investigators are presumably going through his laptops and cellphone for evidence of other extortions. He was supposed to be arraigned yesterday at Fremont Superior Court, though his arraignment was postponed. Anyone with information or experience with Maninder Adama is encouraged to contact the Fremont PD’s Crimes Against Persons Unit at 510-790-6954.

Related: Pippi Longstocking Sex Tape Being Shopped Around Because Your Childhood Was A Lie And People Are Gross

Yelp has finally cracked down on companies caught offering cash in exchange for positive reviews that can make or break a business. The San Francisco-based company revealed to the New York Times that they've already set up a sting operation to make an example of eight businesses across the country who will now be getting a nice big scarlet letter warning users that the they have "caught someone red-handed trying to buy reviews for this business."

Users who visit the offending business pages on the site will be greeted with the image of a cartoon Yelp detective and an invitation to check out the offending evidence for themselves. (Or just ignore it and read the reviews anyway.) Bert Levi Family Jewelers in San Diego, for example, had an average rating of 5-stars with a couple of one and two-star dings on their record before today. Now they've got a link to photographic proof that the jewelry store was offering $200 for a review from an Elite Yelper about their custom ring design. A pest control company was offering users five bucks a pop to post pre-written reviews and an appliance repair shop was willing to put up $30 for every user who wrote that their repairman was on time.

In the past, Yelp has tried to crack down on this sort of thing by burying suspiciously good or overly negative reviews, especially those from relatively new accounts. According to the New York Times, one out of every five reviews is pushed to the second page of results (which we all know no one reads) by the site's internal filters.

On the other hand, Mirror Mirror, a hair salon in Chicago that was also caught in the sting operation claims to know nothing about a $10 offer for a whimsical Romantic Comedy-esque review about a gal flying to the Windy City and getting her hair did for a special date. Mirror Mirror owner Jessica Hernandez told the paper of record that Yelp had aggressively pestered her to promote the business on the site — a common complaint about Yelp ad sales that has led to accusations of extortion in the past.

While the public shaming will probably make the Craigslist offers for favorable reviews disappear, one expert witness for the Times brings up an excellent point: what's to stop Elite Yelpers from going out to local businesses and selling their reviews in person?

Previously: All Yelp coverage on SFist
[NYT]

"Former San Francisco Supervisor Ed Jew sentenced to five and a half years in prison for fraud & extortion," says CBS 5.

The disgraced former supe, as most of you know by now, tried extorting Chinese immigrant owners of Sunset District Quickly for $84,000, Not so effectively preying upon the same people he promised to support during his campaign.

During her ruling, U.S. District Judge Susan Illston said, "I don't think this was a lapse in judgment or a poor decision. This was a corrupt act." The five-plus year sentence was more than the four years and nine months that prosecutors recommended. Ouch.

More jail time could be tacked on to today's sentence as Jew will soon face the state court for felony perjury. If you recall, he also fibbed about where he lived. (Because Burlingame? Isn't even in San Francisco, Ed.)