Former SF Public Utilities Commission head Harlan Kelly was sentenced to four years in prison Monday for fraud charges, after he was found guilty of taking bribes and giving phony information on a bank loan application.

It was about ten months into the Mohammed Nuru public corruption scandal when news broke that the FBI had raided the home of a prominent SF City Hall power couple, San Francisco Public Utilities Commission general manager Harlan Kelly, and his City Administrator wife Naomi Kelly. Harlan Kelly would resign from his post on that November 2020 day, and Naomi Kelly would herself step down two months later.

Things got far more embarrassing for the Kellys when FBI investigators found cocaine in their home. Then as Harlan Kelly was facing charges of taking bribes from permit expediter Walter Wong, there were more charges of participating in bank fraud with politically connected landlord Victor Makras.

Harlan Kelly was found guilty of the bribe and bank fraud charges last July.    

Prosecutors were seeking a six-and-a-half year prison sentence for Kelly. His sentence will not be quite that severe, though, as the Chronicle reports that Kelly was sentenced to four years in prison Monday morning by US District Judge Richard Seeborg.

“Mr. Kelly participated in very serious criminal conduct,” Seeborg said Monday, according to the SF Standard. “He betrayed the public trust and made a mockery of his oath to serve the public.”

Does it make you seem less guilty, or more guilty, when Willie Brown writes a letter of recommendation for you to a judge in your corruption case? Either way, Brown continued with his famous pattern of calling for leniency for City Hall officials accused of crimes. “If I were still in government, I would do my utmost to provide Harlan Kelly with a second chance,” Brown said in his letter, according to the Chronicle, and Brown also claimed that “personal gain was never [Kelly’s] motivation” in the crimes of which he'd been found guilty.

Though it’s a highly suspect claim that Kelly never sought any personal gain, considering that the Chronicle reports that permit expediter Walter Wong  provided Kelly’s home with “a luxurious wine cellar and other amenities” at a steep discount, plus a trip to Hong Kong, in exchange for favorable permit consideration. And Kelly also got local mega-landlord Victor Makras to secretly pay off $70,000 of his loans in order to get a favorable (and fraudulent) mortgage deal.

Kelly’s attorneys hoped for leniency because he apparently had a heart attack last month. “Mr. Kelly now has a stent in his heart,” his attorney Brian Getz wrote in a letter to the judge, as the Chronicle notes. This does not seem to have swayed Judge Seeborg.

Per the SF Standard, Kelly must surrender himself to authorities on June 19. Mohammed Nuru, seen above with Harlan Kelly, is currently serving his seven-year prison sentence at a US penitentiary in Lompoc.

Related: SFPUC Chief Harlan Kelly Charged with Fraud in Expanding City Hall Scandal, Has Home Raided by FBI [SFist]

Image: @MrCleanSF via Twitter

Add two more former SF Department of Building Inspection engineers to the long list of employees of that department to face federal bribery charges, as the feds say both engineers accepted lavish gifts from construction companies in exchange for permits.

Is the SF Department of Building Inspection the most corrupt government agency in San Francisco? We don’t know for sure, but they sure seem to have the largest number of federal bribery charges of any SF department in recent memory. As the Mohammed Nuu scandal spread, we saw the department’s director Tom Hui removed from his position over corruption allegations (though he was never charged), and we’ve seen guilty pleas and prison sentences for bribery and fraud for the department’s former commission head Rodrigo Santos, former inspector Bernard Curran, plus some highly suspicious DBI permits have factored into the fraud conviction for former SF Public Utilities Commission head Harlan Kelly.

The hits keep coming for the SF DBI, as the Chronicle reports that two former engineers have just been charged with bribery by federal prosecutors. The two engineers, Cyril Yu and Rudy Pada, are both no longer with the department. And years ago, Pada was transferred from his field inspector position to a desk job amidst some awfully suspect-sounding allegations.

In the cases of both men, the Department of Justice charging announcement says that their alleged bribes “consisted of cash, free meals, drinks, and other benefits bestowed upon [them] by executives at a construction planning and design firm in return for [them] expediting and approving permits."

In Pada’s case, he is also accused of taking “interest-free $85,000 loan” from an unnamed executive at a construction firm who had business before the DBI. Pada was also the DBI employee that we mentioned was taken off field work after a series of allegations from the year 2000 that he shook down an elderly couple with the demand they write him check made out to "pay to cash" in order to get their permits.

Neither Yu or Pada was arrested or taken into custody. Both face charges that carry  a maximum prison sentence of 20 years, and fines of up to $250,000.

Related: More Indictments for Ex-DBI Commissioner and Building Inspector for Disguising Kickbacks as Rugby Donations [SFist]

Image: SF DBI

Billionaire developer Zhang Li, known for bribing Mohammed Nuru with the $2,000 bottle of wine, a trip to China, and a fancy tractor, admitted guilt on Wednesday. But he got a highly favorable deal that involves no jail time.

It could be that the now-three-and-a-half-year-long Mohammed Nuru bribery and corruption scandal is ending not with a bang, but with a stunningly lenient plea deal with one of the most notorious bribers in this cast of characters. While Nuru himself has already been sentenced to seven years, there was another loose end in mega-bucks Chinese real estate developer Zhang Li, who was arrested last December  for bribing Nuru. He got a very nice house arrest arrangement at his luxury London apartment to bide his time until his hearing.

That hearing came Wednesday at a U.S. District Court in San Francisco. And the Chronicle reports that Li admitted to bribing Nuru, but in taking the plea deal, Li will get off with little more than a $50,000 fine,

Li’s company, China-based Z&L Properties Inc., was developing 12 California housing sites meant to yield an estimated 3,400 condos (many of these are now marred in scandal). One of these was the 555 Fulton Street project (pictured above) with the proposed Trader Joe’s that was delayed for years. Z&L Properties hired permit expediter Walter Wong for that one, who’s pled guilty to fraud and money laundering this affair, as the proposed two-year project took much, much longer to complete.

There were 14 subpoenas issued over gifts and bribes allegedly to cut the red tape on this project. And in Li’s case, he gave Nuru (whom he apparently called “Mo Bro”)  a tractor, a $2,000 bottle of wine, and an all-expenses-paid trip to China, among other gifts.

For this, Li had admitted the crime, but is not actually being charged with anything. Federal prosecutors agreed to drop the charge if he admitted guilt and paid a $50,000 fine. The company Z&L Properties will pay a $1 million fine and “will enter into a corporate compliance program.”

If you think that sounds like a sweetheart deal and the work of some high-powered criminal attorneys who are very good at getting white-collar criminals off scot-free, you’re not the only one.

“The agreement toward the company is not uncommon,” former federal prosecutor Mark Donnelly, told the Chronicle. “But entering into a deferred prosecution agreement with an individual is indeed rare.”

Even Li’s attorney told the Chron he was “elated” with the terms of the deal.

But the feds seem happy enough with the arrangement. “Zhang Li and Z&L Properties have admitted that they bribed a top San Francisco public official., U.S. Attorney Patrick Robbins said in a press release. “The criminal charges and resolutions announced today send a clear message that this office will not tolerate the corruption of public officials in the District by anyone, including individuals acting from outside of the United States.”

As for the much-anticipated Trader Joe’s, the Hayes Valley building was sold to a new developer a while back, and the Trader Joe's is on the way, probably pending a few more approvals.

At least 14 different people and entities have faced criminal charges in the sprawling Nuru affair, many of them now-former City Hall officials. Just this past Friday alone, former SF Public Utilities Commission head Harlan Kelly was found guilty of fraud, while former Department of Building Inspection inspector Bernie Curran was sentenced to a year and a day in prison.

Related: Billionaire 555 Fulton Developer Arrested In London On Mohammed Nuru Bribery Charges [SFist]

The saga of million-dollar bribes, fake charities, and Photoshopped athletic photos known as the “Varsity Blues” college admissions scandal will soon come to a close, as the scheme’s mastermind faces a Wednesday sentencing in federal court.  

It was likely the largest case of college admissions fraud ever when the federal investigation nicknamed “Operation Varsity Blues” ensnared a handful of Bay Area rich people, as well as Hollywood stars Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman. The scheme essentially involved wealthy people paying bribes of up to $6.5 million to get their kids into elite schools like Stanford, via kickbacks to sports recruiting personnel and SAT administrators, and in some cases the students were Photoshopped into photos that made it look like they played sports they’d never played, to justify deceitful recruiting offers.

The accused mastermind of all this, was college admissions “consultant” and Sacramento native Rick Singer. Last we heard of Singer was in July, when a Sacramento Bee reporter tracked him down at an obscure Florida mobile home park. All of the parents who participated in Singer’s schemes have largely been sentenced, but they saved Singer for last, because he flipped and was a cooperating witness against his former clients. But CNN reports that Singer, who’s already pleaded guilty, now has his sentencing hearing next week.

Prosecutors are calling for Singer to be sentenced to six years in prison, and charged $19 million in fines and asset forfeitures. Singer’s attorneys, unsurprisingly, are calling for no prison time, and instead one year of home detention, three years of probation, and 750 hours of community service.

“I have been reflecting on my very poor judgment and criminal activities that increasingly had become my way of life. I have woken up every day feeling shame, remorse, and regret,” Singer wrote in his pre-sentencing court statement. “By ignoring what was morally, ethically, and legally right in favor of winning what I perceived was the college admissions ‘game,’ I have lost everything.”

It will help that Singer flipped and cooperated with federal prosecutors, and had been doing so since well before the scandal became public. But it will hurt him that, according to prosecutors, Singer “not only obstructed the investigation by tipping off at least six of his clients,” but he “also failed to follow the government’s instructions in other ways, including by deleting text messages and using an unauthorized cell phone.”

And there’s also the matter of the spectacular amount of money Singer made by funneling his clients’ money through a sham charity. “Singer took in more than $25 million from his clients and paid bribes totaling more than $7 million,” prosecutors say in sentencing documents. “He transferred, spent, or otherwise used more than $15 million of his clients’ money for his own benefit.”

Singer is scheduled to be sentenced Wednesday, January 4, at a federal court in Boston.

Related: Bay Area Rich People, Stanford Sailing Coach, Two Hollywood Actresses Indicted In College Admissions Scandal [SFist]

Image: BOSTON, MA - MARCH 12: William "Rick" Singer leaves Boston Federal Court after being charged with racketeering conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and obstruction of justice on March 12, 2019 in Boston, Massachusetts. Singer is among several charged in alleged college admissions scam. (Photo by Scott Eisen/Getty Images)

Another one goes down in the ongoing Mohammed Nuru-spawned federal corruption investigations, as the Justice Department announced former Department of Building Inspection inspector Bernard Curran pleaded guilty to taking kickbacks "as rewards for approving building permits."

A spectacular fall from grace is complete for the man who, as seen below, was the SF Department of Building Inspection’s “Employee of the Quarter” in April 2016. Former senior building inspector Bernie Curran pleaded guilty to two counts of “accepting gratuity payments as rewards for approving building permits,” the Department of Justice announced in a Friday afternoon statement. Curran surrendered himself to arrest in February, and had been accused of approving shady permits in exchange for extravagant loans from developers (loans which were sometimes not fully repaid).

Curran is the fellow on the far right in the image above (and parenthetically, on the far left we see former DBI director Tom Hui, who was also forced out of his job for accepting gifts from developers).

As noted,  Curran pleaded guilty on two counts of accepting “gratuities.” The Department of Justice does not name who gave Curran the kickbacks. And one of these kickbacks may or may not represent another prominent developer going down in the many tentacles of the Mohammed Nuru bribery scandal.

The Justice Department refers to a “long time San Francisco real estate developer” who secretly lent Curran $260,000 “to assist Curran in paying down his existing residential mortgage so he could obtain favorable refinancing rates.” The contours of that sound similar to developer Victor Makras’s under-the-table loans to former Public Utilities Commission chief Harlan Kelly, though there is no indication Makras is the developer here. Moreover, the Chronicle reported in June 2021 that Curran had taken an undisclosed $180,000 loan from developer SIA Consulting. So this may be that same loan with slightly different reported numbers, or this may be a new and different developer who has some time in the barrel coming.

The announcement says that Curran “admitted the developer never required him to repay $30,000 of the outstanding balance. Curran understood that the $30,000 debt forgiveness was an improper reward for conducting past and future inspections at the developer’s building projects.”

The second kickback to which Curran pleaded guilty was from, according to the Justice Deaprtment, “an engineer who worked with project owners and contractors seeking building permits in San Francisco.” The engineer is not named, but we know the basic contrours of this one. The Justice Department says the engineer made $9,600 in donations to a “youth athletic organization.”

That 100% matches up with a Rodrigo Santos kickback indictment from November 2021, which also names Curran, saying the duo directed $9,600 in donations to the Golden Gate Rugby Association and Golden Gate Youth Hockey Association.

Both counts to which Curran pleaded guilty carry a possible 10-year prison sentence. He’s scheduled to be sentenced on March 31, 2023. Per the Department of Justice, “Curran remains out of custody pending his sentencing hearing.”

Related: Disgraced Ex-Building Inspector Allegedly Approved Shady, Ridiculously Unsafe Permits All Over San Francisco [SFist]

Image: @sfdbi via Twitter

It is done.

According to the Chronicle, a "federal grand jury indicted suspended San Francisco Supervisor Ed Jew today on charges of soliciting $80,000 in bribes from local businesses by threatening their city permits."

Jew was indicted on charges mail fraud, bribery, and extortion (i.e., his plan to bribe Quickly owners with licensing problems.) Other bits of downfall glory include such antics as accepting $4,000 (in cash!) from the owners of Wonderful Desserts and Cafe, and...well, you know how the story goes.

Charlene Thornton, special agent in charge of the FBI's San Francisco office, goes on to tell the Chronicle, "[w]hen public servants betray the people's trust for the sake of personal gain, they deeply wound the democratic principles upon which this society is founded." Alas.

As of now his lawyers are mute with regards to any public statement. Disgraced supervisor Ed Jew will be arraigned on the indictment tomorrow at 9:30 a.m.

Read more about it here, here, and here.