Lee remains jailed
Bail hearing delayed, cancelled

by Jennifer Pritchett
Northern News Services

NNSL (June 27/97) - Poker baron Wing Lee will remain in custody until a preliminary hearing into numerous sex-related crimes he is charged with occurs next week.

In jail since RCMP re-arrested him last Friday, Lee was charged yesterday afternoon with obstructing justice by violating the terms of a release order when he contacted two girls under the age of 18.

During his bail hearing earlier Thursday, the 61-year-old Five Aces Social Club organizer elected to stay in jail until his preliminary inquiry, scheduled to begin next Wednesday afternoon.

Lee's bail hearing began Monday, but was delayed throughout the week because the court had difficulty locating a second Cantonese interpreter.

A local interpreter was provided by the court on Tuesday, but the same man was unavailable for the rest of the hearing. This forced the court to search Edmonton and Vancouver for an interpreter.

The search was called off when Lee opted to stay in jail at the Yellowknife Correctional Centre rather than seek bail.

Lee is facing a total of 27 charges, including sex-related, weapons and gambling offences.

The charges stem from a three-month RCMP investigation that resulted in a May 30 search of Lee's Gold Range Hotel residence. Police found more than 1,300 videotapes and photographs of nude young girls, several guns and thousands of rounds of ammunition.

Ten RCMP members are viewing the tapes full-time to identify girls in the tapes and determine if any are under the age of 18, said Staff Sgt. Dave Grundy.

"We had to put more officers on it because we haven't been able to get through the tapes fast enough," he said.

If the original two officers had remained the only investigators watching the tapes, the process would have taken all summer, Grundy said earlier in the investigation.

He expects that the officers will have finished viewing the tapes by the end of this week or early next week.