OAKLAND — The world of Frank Wishom was collapsing fast in 2003 when he started talking to the FBI.
The high-tech company he had nurtured for a decade was failing. The woman in his life for 20 years had dumped him. And his diabetes was flaring so severely he expected to lose his legs.
Then, after undergoing vein surgery in fall 2003, the 62-year-old businessman had a heart attack and died.
Whatever he said to the FBI remains a mystery, because officials refuse to talk about the federal investigation that now threatens California’s new state Senate leader.
But Wishom’s friends, relatives and associates — some of whom have been contacted by FBI agents — are convinced that his allegations about public corruption here figure in the probe.
The grand jury investigation is swirling around Sen. Don Perata (D-Oakland) and Wishom’s ex-girlfriend, prominent Oakland lobbyist Lily Hu, who once worked as a Perata aide.
In November, subpoenas were issued seeking information about payments and communications involving Perata and more than a dozen people and companies associated with him, including his two grown children, his former business partner and Hu.
On Dec. 15, federal agents executed search warrants on the homes of Perata and his son, a political consultant who has worked on the senator’s campaigns.
Perata has denied any wrongdoing and said that he was prepared to cooperate with investigators.
Hu’s attorney, Doron Weinberg, said the investigation was triggered by baseless allegations raised by Wishom as a result of his breakup with Hu.
“Frank apparently was far off the deep end, acting irrationally and doing unreasonable things,” Weinberg said. “In his mental state, he would have accused her of anything.”
It was in the mid-1980s that Wishom began his relationship with Hu, a personable and hard-driving native of Taiwan. She and Wishom soon grew so close that some friends thought they were married.
For years, Hu had shared her upscale home with Wishom, a telecommunications contractor who wore $400 shoes, drove a big BMW, sailed a yacht and told people he once played football at nearby UC Berkeley.
The couple had been a fixture in this city’s political and social life and threw lavish holiday parties with catered food.
Wishom was known by many as “Big Frank,” a charismatic 6-foot-4 man who advocated causes for urban youths and helped fellow African Americans with their careers. But relatives and friends also saw a grandiose personality with a self-destructive business style, an explosive temper and a tendency to shade facts, or worse.
“He lived a complete farce,” said Deirdre Wishom, his oldest daughter and a schoolteacher living in Stockton. “My father was a notorious liar.”
Divorced twice, Wishom met Hu, a college dropout in her late 20s, at a birthday party. They fell in love and soon were working together at a firm Wishom was managing, friends say.
Within a few years, Wishom had established himself as a highly visible member of Oakland’s business and professional community.
After stints at several companies, Wishom launched a consulting business, F2 Technologies, with a partner whose name also was Frank. They later split.
Hu was working in telecommunications marketing, was president of Oakland Chinatown’s Chamber of Commerce and was running for City Council.
She lost the election, but after serving as a part-time field representative in Perata’s Assembly district office in 1997, she started a lobbying firm.
Hu and Wishom were political allies and friends of Perata, a Democrat who ascended from county supervisor to state assemblyman and senator. When Wishom became active in the prestigious service group 100 Black Men, it was no surprise that Perata was sitting at F2’s table during an event. Wishom was a forceful speaker and a natural salesman who landed several contracts with government agencies in the Bay Area.
He also benefited from Hu’s high visibility as one of the city’s busiest lobbyists, according to friends. In 1998, he won a $4.7-million contract to upgrade Oakland’s computers to avert Y2K meltdowns.
But like other tech companies, F2 began a downhill slide, and word got out that Wishom was better at landing contracts than executing them, said his longtime friend Herman Blackmon. “But he was such a good guy and knew so many people that he was able to deflect criticism.”
Wishom was hit by numerous federal and state tax liens.
The year 2003 erased most of the good things in Wishom’s life, and the stresses began to mount.
In March, Hu broke up with him, and he moved out of the house. In July, his mother died, and F2 Technologies filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection.
About that time, Wishom sounded out political newsletter publisher Sanji Handa, a friend. Wishom indicated he had bank records and other documentation that would be devastating to Perata and his allies, Handa recalled. “He said he was going to the FBI.”
In September 2003, Hu obtained a temporary restraining order, alleging that Wishom was constantly calling and following her and threatening her male friends.
Wishom’s own psychiatrist even warned Hu about his emotional state.
In his written denial of the harassment charge, Wishom alleged that he was the one being threatened. He said he received an anonymous call from a man who said, “Keep your mouth shut, or you will find yourself floating in the bay.”
Wishom also wrote that the FBI “is investigating Ms. Hu’s conduct in regard to her lobbying activities, and her activities with politicians.”
In a Sept. 22, 2003, letter to Wishom’s attorney, Hu’s attorney accused Wishom of bullying Hu through threats to “expose” false information about her. “She has no reason to believe that the FBI is investigating her, and she is not taking or giving any ‘kickbacks,’ ” the attorney wrote.
One source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Wishom specifically alleged in their conversations that kickbacks from government contracts were being laundered through payments for consulting work by Wishom and others.
Attorney Colin Cooper confirmed that he represented Wishom for about a month just before his death.
“I know he was being queried by the FBI, and he wanted me to help him,” Cooper said. “We never had a meeting with the FBI because he passed away.”
At one point, Wishom arranged a meeting with Perata in Sacramento to discuss his contracting business, but nothing apparently came of it. A Perata spokesman declined to comment.
During the breakup with Hu and the demise of his business, Wishom was depressed, friends and relatives agree. His diabetes worsened, and he told people that he feared that his legs would have to be amputated. While hospitalized after vein surgery, on Oct. 2, 2003, Wishom died of a heart attack.
More than 200 people, including Perata and Hu, attended Wishom’s memorial service. A newspaper account repeated one of Wishom’s tallest tales — that he had played football at UC Berkeley. A spokeswoman said the university had no record of him attending, and his oldest daughter said flatly, “He did not set foot on a campus.”
Wishom did not change his will, leaving everything to Hu. But there was nothing except debts — and the allegations of a dead man.
“What it feels like to me,” said Wishom’s first wife, Marie Henry of Palo Alto, “is the man is haunting her from his grave.”
