Najee Ali, who joined LPB in October, was controversial to say the least. He was sentenced to four years in state prison Monday after pleading guilty to trying to bribe a witness in his daughter'....

I interviewed him a few times when I was a reporter and found his one-on-one skills, demeanor and intelligence in sharp contrast to how he portrayed himself to the media, and how the media portrayed him.

I didn't like his tactics and he did seem like an opportunist - but I know that sometimes the causes he fought for (whatever his ultimate motive) would have been ignored by the mainstream media if not for him. And sometimes his clownish behavior hurt the very cause he was promoting/exploiting.

Celeste Fremon of Witness LA had a similar take: Ali’s a funny character about which there is much, shall we say, controversy —both within the Black community and outside it. (As recently as Friday, I was arguing with folks about his worth—or lack thereof—as a community voice.)

He created himself as community spokesperson, not because he really represented any constituency, but based almost solely on personal chutzpah, and an ability to show up everywhere, Zelig-like, when there was some conflict brewing, and then manage to have something quotable to say when reporters were looking for sound bites.

And, listen: in the years since I met Najee in the Spring of 2005 I’ve come to honestly like the guy, have often quoted him, and have had many conversations about this or that LA issue in which he provided a genuinely intelligent and thoughtful perspective.

LA TIMES: The 45-year-old former gang member turned community activist tried to tamper with a witness in January outside his daughter's preliminary hearing in Alhambra, said Sandi Gibbons, spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County district attorney's office. He was charged March 11 with attempting to intimidate and bribe a witness. But prosecutors later dismissed the intimidation charge.

Jasmin Eskew, Ali's daughter, is awaiting trial on two counts of assault with a deadly weapon and one count of leaving the scene of an accident stemming from an incident in July 2007 involving her vehicle and a group of motorcyclists on the San Bernardino Freeway, Gibbons said.

Ali would have received two years in prison, but a prior robbery conviction in 1992 doubled his time to four years, Gibbons said. The judge also found that Ali had violated his probation in a 2004 case in which he was convicted of felony hit-and-run and perjury.

Ali, born Ronald Todd Eskew, spent two years in prison for armed robbery before coming to prominence in 1998 when he led public protests over the case of Sherrice Iverson, a 7-year-old girl from South Central Los Angeles who was sexually attacked and strangled in a Nevada casino bathroom.

He became an activist who transcended convention, protesting pornography in a Snoop Dogg video, urging blacks to work with police and speaking out on behalf of crime victims of every race.

In 2004, he was sentenced to five years' probation and 1,000 hours of community service after he left the scene of a car accident. After his vehicle collided with another at Crenshaw and Martin Luther King boulevards, he fled into a nearby movie theater. At the time, he was free on bail on charges of identity theft.