The judge in the federal corruption trial involving former Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao and three co-defendants has denied a motion by the defendants to toss evidence that they say was obtained inappropriately by investigators.

There was a blow this week to the defendants' side of the federal corruption case that ensnared former Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao, her romantic partner Andre Jones, and local father-and-son business partners David and Andy Duong. As Bay Area News Group reports, attorneys for the co-defendants had filed a motion to toss a trove of evidence that they say was obtained after "presenting dishonest or reckless information."

According to the ruling by Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, "Defendants present no credible evidence that the government intended to deceive or acted with reckless disregard." And Rogers further denied a motion for an evidentiary hearing.

This development paves the way further toward a potential trial or plea deal, but we still could be many months away from that.

At the heart of the evidentiary issue, per the news group, is star witness Mario Juarez, who until recently had not been named in court records. Attorneys for the defendants have alleged that that federal prosecutors have built a case around the "self-serving spin" of a man with a “shockingly long history of criminal charges and civil disputes," and a "decades-long track record of defrauding business partners."

Juarez's name arose early in this case, way back in June 2024, before Thao's ultimate resignation from the mayor's office. Juarez was implicated as a "straw donor" who may  have funneled money from the Duongs into Thao's 2022 mayoral campaign. And just 11 days before the FBI raids targeting Thao and the other co-defendants, Juarez's home was allegedly shot up — and he was allegedly severely beaten up as well, one month earlier. (A 25-year-old man, Hermelindo Olber Ramos Ramos, was charged last year with shooting at Juarez's home.)

Things have moved slowly with this case. The quartet of defendants would not be indicted until January 2025, and in November 2025, we learned that Juarez was a star witness in the case and had apparently been coorperating with investigators.

As Bay Area News Group reports via court filings, federal prosecutors strongly denied that their case rested so heavily on Juarez's testimony, telling the judge, "The government had been investigating defendants’ bribery scheme for over a year before interviewing [Juarez]." Prosecutors acknowledged Juarez's past run-ins with the law, and they say that they had already collected a host of text messages and other evidence in the case before they had even met with him.

The trial is currently scheduled for October 19, pending any further delays. Thao and Jones are accused of soliciting and accepting bribes, including a $95,000-per-year no-show job for Jones at the Duongs' company — though earlier filings suggest there is evidence that she had sought far more.

In exchange, Thao allegedly worked to get lucrative city contracts for the Duongs and their waste management company, California Waste Solutions, as well as a startup housing company focused on prefabricated tiny homes. The alleged corruption playbook is oddly similar to the one that played out in San Francisco several years earlier, involving both waste management and a startup tiny-home company.

The San Francisco probe ended in multiple convictions, including that of former SF Public Works chief Mohammed Nuru, who is serving a seven-year sentence.

Related: State AG Rob Bonta Dragged Back Into Sheng Thao Scandal, With Claims There Is ‘Compromising’ Video of Him

Top image: Sheng Thao speaks onstage at the TAAF Heritage Month Summit at The Glasshouse on May 02, 2024 in New York City. (Photo by JP Yim/Getty Images for The Asian American Foundation)

Former San Leandro City Councilmember Bryan Azevedo filed a guilty plea in federal court Wednesday in the corruption case that also ensnared former Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao, making him now a potential witness against her.

We first learned the name of San Leandro City Councilmember Bryan Azevedo last summer, when Azevedo received official notice that he was under investigation by federal agents. Azevedo, like former Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao, was among a group of East Bay elected officials who went on a sponsored, probably fairly luxury trip to Vietnam in August 2023, paid for by the Vietnamese American Business Association.

That business group is led by East Bay waste-management tycoon David Duong, who with his son Andy Duong, as we know, was indicted alongside Thao in January 2025 on bribery and corruption charges.

Azevedo was then charged by the feds in October for taking bribes, and for lying to FBI agents about a $2,000 envelope of cash. It was immediately clear that Azevedo was looking to cut a deal with the feds, and a US attorney Abraham Fine said as much to a judge in November, saying, that prosecutors were, "very close to reaching a resolution for this case."

That resolution is now taking shape, as Bay Area News Group reports on Azevedo's Wednesday guilty plea in federal court. Azevedo reportedly said little in court, and the prosecutor, Fine, also said little, per the news group.

Azevedo faces a maximum of 25 years for the two counts against him, though as the news group notes, he's unlikely to serve much time at all, especially if he cooperating with prosecutors in the case against Thao, her romantic partner Andre Jones, and the Duongs.

Those four faces multiple charges, and they have all pleaded not guilty, with a trial still pending. Thao allegedly made numerous promises to the Duongs, including contracts involving their waste-management company and a tiny-home startup they launched called Evolutionary Homes. In exchange, the Duong's allegedly created a no-show job for Jones, for which he was paid a salary of $95,000.

The indictment further alleged that Thao had been seeking a bribe of $3 million, but did not get it.

Azevedo previously entered a not-guilty plea in November, and as Bay Area News Group noted, he gave a series of strange TV interviews in recent months in which he denied wrongdoing and referred to Andy Duong as a longtime friend and a "great guy."

Azevedo resigned from his seat on the San Leandro City Council on Tuesday, one day ahead of his court appearance.

The corruption case has bizarrely similar parallels to the one that unfolded several years earlier in San Francisco, including the involvement of a tiny-home startup, and waste-management contracts. In that case, the ringleader of the corruption was former SF Public Works chief Mohammed Nuru, who is currently serving a seven-year sentence for taking bribes, and more.

That probe ensnared multiple SF city officials and contractors, as the Oakland case seems also likely to do.

Previously: San Leandro City Councilmember Dragged Into Sheng Thao Scandal May Be on Verge of the Feds Flipping Him

If you think there’s corruption at SF City Hall, you can now report it yourself and maybe start an investigation, thanks to SF’s first-ever Inspector General Alex Shepard who just started the new watchdog job this month.

There’s an unexpected leftover legacy of longtime SF Supervisor Aaron Peskin in SF City Hall. That would be the creation of a new San Francisco Inspector General position thanks to Peskin’s 2024 Prop C anti-corruption measure that voters passed, creating a new City Hall watchdog to "initiate and lead investigations regarding potential violations of laws or policies involving fraud, waste, or abuse."

Now more than a year after Prop C passed, SF finally hired that new Inspector General, Alex Shepard, who started the job on January 5. Shepard is a former Assistant United States Attorney who was one of the feds involved with prosecuting the Mohammed Nuru corruption and fraud case.  

Though in a new sit-down interview with the Chronicle, Shepard notes she was not the case’s primary prosecutor.

“The Nuru case had already been charged. I came in later and did the sentencing,” Shepard tells the Chronicle. “It was me and a group of agents from FBI and IRS Criminal Investigations. We picked up what started out as some conversation on the wiretap on Nuru’s phone between him and Paul Giusti from Recology and we kind of ran with it from there. You interview a lot of people, you subpoena and review a lot of documents and we did all of that sort of methodically to build that case.”

There are no earth-shattering revelations in Shepard’s introductory Chronicle interview. Perhaps the most interesting thing about it is that she details a new Tip Line where people can report suspected SF City Hall fraud to her office.

Tipsters can confidentially report suspected City Hall abuse, fraud, or waste to  whistleblower@sfgov.org, and Shepard's new Inspector General office can be reached at inspectorgeneral@sfgov.org.

And interestingly, Shepard does not think San Francisco is a particularly corrupt city.

“San Francisco is very much like its peer large cities,” she says. “I don’t think it has any special corruption problem. San Francisco has a lot of money. And we, for example, do a lot of big capital construction projects. There were perhaps less robust controls and money to be made and so people took advantage of that.”

Nor does she think that all of the nonprofit scandals we saw under Mayor London Breed are in indictment on the nonprofits’ work.

“There are a small number of bad actors at nonprofits and a lot of great, hardworking, good actors at nonprofits who provide much-needed services to the city,” Shepard explains. “There have been recent investigations and resolutions involving nonprofits, that may just be where we are at the moment. If you pull back and look at this from a 50,000-foot view, I see as many, probably more private sector defendants being charged in these cases, and a handful of nonprofits.”

The big question on whether Alex Shepard will be an effective Inspector General is whether she will pursue the pet causes of Mayor Daniel Lurie (who hired her). And there’s certainly smoke there, if not fire, with the awarding of a contract to a company run by Lurie donors when other companies put in more affordable bids.

So it's too early to tell whether the new Inspector General will make any massive changes at San Francisco City Hall, but at least some adult has got their eye on the playground now.

Related: Nuru Takes Plea Deal With the Feds and Will Plead Guilty to Fraud, Plus Yet Unreported $20,000 Bribe [SFist]

Image: SF.gov

The wild corruption case of a SF City Hall Workers' Comp department employee who embezzled $627,118 and blew city money and personal tech gear has ended, and that now-fired employee is headed to prison.

We occasionally find SF City Hall corruption stories that are just plain funny. One example that comes to mind is the embezzlement scheme of former assistant director of finance and technology for the SF City Hall HR workers’ comp division, Stanley Ellicott. He was charged in January 2024 for invoicing the city $14,000 for “earthquake supplies,” though according to his charging statement from the DA’s office, “The actual items purchased were three Oculus virtual reality headsets, four Rylo Action cameras, an HDTV projector, a Nikon DSLR camera worth nearly $2,000, four GoPro cameras, three mini instant cameras, six Microsoft tablets, and four OSMO pocket cameras with expansion kits.” Ellicott admits he then went and just resold most of that shit on eBay.

That scandal got a lot less funny when we learned a couple months later that Ellicott had allegedly embezzled more than $627,000 from the city’s workers’ compensation budget. The young man seemed to know the gig was up, and he pleaded guilty last month.

Now DA Brooke Jenkins just announced today that Ellicott has been sentenced to three years in a state prison.

“Mr Ellicott had enormous responsibility as the Assistant Director of Finance and Technology in the City’s Workers’ Compensation department and he is being held accountable for violating the public trust,” Jenkins's office said in a press release. “I am committed to rooting out public corruption at all levels and protecting residents and taxpayers from fraud and gross misconduct perpetrated by city employees.”

Ellicott started a fake business in Illinois called IAG Services, and between May 2019 and January 2024, he billed the city’s HR workers’ compensation fund for $627,118.86 for “auditing services.” There is no evidence that IAG Services, which was secretly Ellicott’s company, ever did any form of auditing. And this is the sort of thing that auditing is supposed to catch, is it not?

“The website for the Illinois business ‘IAG Services’ created in Oakland – where Ellicott lives – and IAG emails sent to Ellicott’s work address that appear to be created by him,” the DA’s statement adds. “On several occasions, Mr. Ellicott emailed his subordinates [at SF City Hall] and directed them to process payments to IAG that he had approved, enlisting their unknowing and unwitting assistance in his fraud.”

Ellicott pleaded guilty to two counts of misappropriation of public money, grand theft, financial conflict of interest, presentation of fraudulent claim, money laundering, and aiding and abetting a financial conflict of interest in a government contract.

Though ironically, the plea deal he took with that guilty plea resolves his fraud charges, the charges he got for buying VR headsets with city money that he billed as “earthquake supplies.”

Related: SF Worker Who Bought VR Headsets With City Money Now Accused of Stealing $627K In Workers' Comp [SFist]

Image: BERLIN, GERMANY - NOVEMBER 1: A visitor wears VR goggles to observe a simulation from inside the Einstein Telescope EMR at the Museum of Natural History during the opening day of the 2025 Berlin Science Week on November 1, 2025 in Berlin, Germany. Berlin Science Week, which runs from November 1-11, is taking place under the motto "Beyond Now" with over 350 events across the city to explore the question of how science contributes to overcoming today's crises and opening up new perspectives for the future. (Photo by Omer Messinger/Getty Images)

In a federal investigation scandal that bears some clear similarities to the one that, at least in part, led to the recall of Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao, San Leandro City Councilmember Bryan Azevedo is now officially under investigation by the feds.

We already basically knew that multi-term San Leandro City Councilmember Bryan Azevedo was being looked at by the feds. And it was likely not a coincidence that his home was raided by federal agents on the same January day that former Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao was officially indicted.

Almost five months later, though, Azevedo still hasn't been indicted himself. But the Chronicle reports today that the US Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California sent Azevedo a letter on May 12 telling him that he should contact them by May 30 if he was "interested in resolving this matter short of an indictment." It's not clear what that means, and the paper could not confirm whether anything had changed with Azevedo's case.

Perhaps, though, they'd be willing to cut a deal with Azevedo if he agrees to help them bring down a bigger fish, which is generally how these federal indictment chains work.

We know that Azevedo, like Thao, was part of a group of East Bay elected officials who went along on a sponsored — and likely cushy — trip to Vietnam in August 2023, paid for by the Vietnamese American Business Association, which is led by David Duong, the waste-management tycoon who was indicted on corruption charges alongside Thao.

And the business dealings of Duong's family business, Cal Waste Solutions, appears to be key to whatever the feds have against Thao, and likely Azevedo as well. (Thao's indictment includes the detail that she allegedly tried to solicit a bribe from the Duongs to the tune of $3 million, though she did not get nearly that much out of them.)

Azevedo has not commented on the matter, and we may not hear much more about this for a while. After all, it was a full seven months between the June 2024 raid on Thao's home and her formal charges.

Neither Thao, nor her boyfriend Andre Jones, nor David or his son Andy Duong, has yet to stand trial on those charges, and the feds are likely still gathering their evidence.

The cases, of course, bear some obvious similarities with the federal corruption case against former SF Public Works director Mohammed Nuru. Nuru, similarly, received bribes and in-kind gifts from developers and city contractors, including waste management executives, due to his role in securing lucrative contracts with the city. And those gifts also included at least one all-expense paid trip to Asia.

Nuru pleaded guilty in early 2022, and is currently serving the third of his seven-year sentence in federal lockup.

Thursday’s FBI raid on Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao’s house appears to be part of a larger investigation of Oakland’s trash pick-up contractor, and this thing might be a Mohammed Nuru-caliber scandal that ensnares many more politicians in Oakland — and beyond.

When the FBI raided the home of Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao on Thursday, the big obvious question on everyone’s minds was “Why did the FBI raid the home of Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao?” We still don’t know for sure. But we’ll start with another question that would seem completely irrelevant. If you’re familiar with trash and recycling costs in both Oakland and San Francisco, you may have wondered “Why are trash and recycling costs so much more expensive in Oakland compared to San Francisco?”  

These two questions might be highly correlated. As KTVU notes, the federal agents also simultaneously raided the offices of Cal Waste Solutions, who handle trash and recycling pick-up for Oakland and San Jose, and describe themselves as the “largest recycling company in Northern California.” Oaklandside reports that the FBI also raided the homes of Cal Waste Solutions CEO David Duong and his son Andy Duong. That site also dug up a ton of social media posts (many embedded throughout this article) showing just how politically active the father-and-son team are. The Chronicle describes son Andy Duong as “a prolific donor to both Democratic and Republican officials, political action committees and state parties across the country.”

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A post shared by Andy Duong (@mrandyduong)

“They’re operators. They’re pretty high-profile,” political consultant Jim Ross told the Chronicle. “They’re in an industry that really depends on relationships with elected officials. They have really aligned with whoever they think can get them contracts.”

KTVU reports that neighbors “saw two people put in handcuffs” in the raid at one of the Duong’s homes. But Politico has the details of the raid on Thao’s house: It started at 6 am Thursday morning, Thao was escorted out of the home by FBI agents, and the FBI’s San Francisco office merely told that outlet they were conducting “court-authorized law enforcement activity on Maiden Lane.”

Oaklandside notes that Cal Waste Solutions got the billion-dollar contract to collect Oakland’s trash and recycling in 2014. But they faced a lawsuit from the city in 2017 for overcharging customers by as much as 550%. (They settled the lawsuit with a $6 million payment in 2021.)

Then in 2019, the Oakland Public Ethics Commission launched an investigation into illegal campaign contributions to Thao and several other Oakland City Council candidates, as Oaklandside reported. Cal Waste Solutions was accused of laundering campaign contributions through “straw donors,” therefore avoiding campaign donation limits.

Oaklandside reported in 2020 that the Oakland Public Ethics Commission found $51,000 worth of these potential illegal donations to various council members. One of these alleged straw donors was insurance broker and then-president of the Oakland Vietnamese Chamber of Commerce Phuc Tran, who made a potentially illegal $5,000 contribution. The Chronicle notes that Tran’s daughter Jennifer Tran is now the president of that organization, and happens to be running for that region’s US House of Representatives seat against Lateefah Simon. So this cannot be welcome news for Jennifer Tran’s campaign.

As the Chronicle also points out, the seemingly illegal contributions all happened while the overcharging lawsuit was being negotiated with the City of Oakland. You can draw your own conclusions on that.

David Duong is also the co-chair of the Vietnamese American Business Association, which sponsored a junket to Vietnam for Thao and other staffers in the summer of 2023. Alameda County Supervisor Lena Tam and Sheriff Yesenia Sanchez, as well as their staffs, also went on that trip.

Per the Chronicle, the “Vietnamese American Business Association paid $12,000 a person to cover the business class flights, five-star hotel accommodations, meals and transportation for Thao, the port commissioners and staffers.”

For their part, California Waste Solutions spokesperson and Vietnamese American Business Association director (hmmm, she works for them both?) Teresa Hoang told the Chronicle,  “We are fully aware of the raid, and we’re fully cooperating” with the investigation. She added, “We’re confident that the results will show we are not doing anything unlawful or improper."

Update (June 21. 2:50 pm): We still have not heard from Mayor Thao, but her attorney has made a public statement. “It’s unfortunate that the mayor did not receive any request for information from the authorities, because she would have responded, and she would have cooperated,” her lawyer Anthony Brass said, according to the Chronicle. “And now, the optics of an elected official having a search warrant executed on her residence suggests wrongdoing. I hope that everyone will reserve judgment until this can be sorted out.”

Thao’s political enemies are justifiably making hay of all this. But maybe they ought to be cautious. Above we see Thao’s rival and former Oakland City Councilmember Loren Taylor, who absolutely wants Thao’s job. Note he is pictured here hugging Andy Duong, which indicates Taylor might be neck-deep in Duong trouble, too.  

Oh, and we have not yet mentioned there is a vote on whether to recall Sheng Thao scheduled for November 5!

"The recall will get steam from this, and it really places her in a position where she's gonna have to make some tough decisions very, very soon," unaffiliated political consultant Brian Sobel told KTVU.

Translation: Sheng Thao might be forced to resign (or possibly arrested?) before that recall election even happens.

Related: FBI Agents Raid Home of Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao [SFist]

Image: @wnbagoldenstate via Twitter

The San Mateo County District Attorney’s Office filed charges against two former Caltrain employees for allegedly misusing public funds to construct personal residences within train stations.

Former Caltrain’s deputy director of operations, Joseph Navarro, and station manager Seth Worden are accused of felony misappropriation of public funds, per KPIX.

Navarro allegedly directed the conversion of an office space at the Burlingame station into his personal residence from 2019 to 2020. The District Attorney’s office alleges Navarro enlisted contractors, approved by Worden, to install amenities such as a kitchen, shower, heating, plumbing, and security cameras.

Prosecutors claim Navarro and Worden kept renovation costs below $3,000 per invoice to circumvent Caltrain’s approval process. This strategy allegedly allowed Navarro to occupy the Burlingame station as his primary residence until an anonymous tip in 2022 led to his discovery and subsequent termination.

Worden, a former station manager employed by TransAmerica Services Inc., the company contracted to operate Caltrain, faces similar charges. According to the DA’s office, Worden replicated Navarro’s scheme at the Millbrae station in 2019. However, Caltrain employees reportedly identified Worden’s unauthorized residence in 2020 and terminated his employment, per the Chronicle.

The total cost of the alleged misappropriation is around $50,000, with $42,000 for the Burlingame station renovations and $8,000 for Millbrae project.

Worden pleaded not guilty on Wednesday, but still awaits a preliminary hearing. Navarro’s arraignment is scheduled, where he will enter a plea.

Feature image via Unsplash/Flipboard.

It’s now two arrests in two months for a since-fired city HR manager who allegedly used city funds to buy fancy tech gear, as he was arrested again Thursday for charges of stealing $627,000 from the city through a fraudulent workers' compensation scheme.

Imagine the Mohammend Nuru scandal, except way dorkier: Back in August, a fairly low-level SF City Hall grant director and a former city employee were arrested and charged with running a $200,000 contracts-for-kickbacks scheme. Then in late January, city Human Resources manager Stanley John Ellicott was arrested for his tangential involvement in the alleged operation, where he did website work for the former city employee’s new consulting firm, and the grant director paid him off the books with funds earmarked as “earthquake supplies.” Ellicott then allegedly bought VR headsets and high-end tech gear with the money, much of which he sold on eBay and pocketed the money.

Ellicott’s alleged ill-gotten taxpayer slush fund amounted to about $14,000 in that case. But now it looks like he may have been running an exponentially larger con with your tax dollars.

Mission Local reports Ellicott was arrested again Thursday over an alleged $627,000 workers' compensation scam. He’s accused of setting up a fake company, and then billing the city for "auditing services" that this fake company was supposedly performing, to the tune of more than 600 grand.

This allegation is unrelated to the previously described offenses, but was uncovered in the investigation of those offenses. An investigator in the SF district attorney’s office found a “long series of unusual deposits” into Ellicott’s bank account, payments from something called IAG Services.

“Ellicott enlisted a friend to register a fake business in Illinois called ‘IAG Services’ and open a bank account for the business, which she gave full control of to Ellicott,” according to a Thursday press release from DA Brooke Jenkins’s office. “Ellicott then added this fake business as a vendor in the workers’ compensation system and over time billed more than 600 actual City workers’ compensation claims with charges for auditing services. Department archives show no evidence any auditing services were ever performed.”

The release adds that “because the City is self-insured for workers’ compensation purposes, payments to doctors, employees, and vendors related to workers’ compensation claims come directly from the City’s coffers.”

Jenkins’s office says they will charge Ellicott with 62 felony counts, including grand theft, misappropriation of public funds, insurance fraud, and money laundering. He’s scheduled to be arraigned Friday.

Related: Another City Hall Employee Charged for Corruption, Allegedly Using Earthquake Funds to Buy VR Headsets [SFist]

Image: Hammer & Tusk via Unsplash

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

The SFPD-affiliated nonprofit SF SAFE was already awash in allegations of forged checks and millions in funds missing. Add to their troubles that they allegedly ran up a $17,000 bill at a Mission District floral shop that the nonprofit never paid.

A donnybrook of a local scandal broke last month when we learned that a city audit of an SFPD-funded nonprofit called SF SAFE turned up tens of thousands of dollars in frivolous spending, in Tahoe trips, limo rides, $162 gift boxes, and events that seemed much fancier than they needed to be (as seen below). That scandal went nuclear less than a week later, when we learned of allegations of forged checks and millions of dollars missing, and freshly fired SF SAFE CEO Kyra Worthy went radio silent.

Those allegations overshadowed other allegations that SF SAFE has stiffed some other Mission District nonprofits out of hundreds of thousands. And it sure doesn’t smell right, as Mission Local now reports, that SF SAFE reportedly left a $17,000 unpaid bill with Mission District florist Diosa Blooms (22nd and Capp streets).

And apparently, the arrangements Worthy ordered from that florist were quite extravagant. “She always liked big arrangements,” Diosa Blooms co-owner Krisha Militante told Mission Local. “Nothing dainty, no small flowers.”

Mission Local reports that SF SAFE has an unpaid invoice for “$7,814 for a belated Christmas party in January 2023” (in addition to a $9,625 bill the next month for a Black History Month event). But given that date, and its correlation to a tweet posted by Supervisor Catherine Stefani, we can Zapruper-film ourselves a look at what are likely these very floral arrangements whose invoices are still in arrears.

Stefani tweeted the above photo on January 12, 2023, saying, “Thank you to @SFPDChief and @SFSAFE for gathering the many community partners who support SFPD’s work tonight in their ‘after the holidays’ party.” Mission Local also describes unpaid floral bills from “a belated Christmas party in January 2023.” And we do see a floral arrangement beyond Stefani’s left shoulder in the above photo.

And we see another arrangement in this image, on a table at which the guests were clearly treated to a very nice buffet. Wonder if those caterers ever got paid!

Either way, the florist has not. Worthy reportedly promised the shop they’d start receiving payment installments by January 25 this year, but then Worthy was fired on January 24.

Parenthetically, SFPD just canceled their contract with SF SAFE Thursday, according to the SF Standard. But there is no word on whether anyone is picking up the tab on SF SAFE’s unpaid bills.

Related: SF SAFE Scandal Gets Way Bigger, With Allegations of Check Forgery, and Millions of Dollars Missing [SFist]

Image: Adele F. via Yelp

An SF City Hall bribery scheme that surfaced in August has spawned a new set of charges wherein a city worker allegedly billed for earthquake supplies, but instead bought VR headsets and tech gear which he then resold on eBay.

Admittedly, it was not one of the bigger SF City Hall corruption scandals in recent memory, but a corruption scandal nonetheless, when a current and former city employee were arrested on bribery charges back in August. SF Community Challenge Grant Program director Lanita Henriquez was charged with steering $1.4 million in city contracts to the consultancy firm RDJ Enterprises, led by former city employee Dwayne Jones. Jones allegedly then funneled some $200,000 back to Jones and her family members in return. Both have pleaded not guilty, and their cases are making their way through the courts.

But on Thursday, the story got a new twist. Mission Local reports that an SF City Hall human resources employee, Stanley Ellicott, was arrested and charged with bribery for his own previously unknown role in the scheme, which was doing some of the website and technical work that RDJ Enterprises was supposedly doing. Henriquez then allegedly paid Ellicott off the books by invoicing the city for “earthquake supplies,” but Ellicott was merely buying tablets, digital cameras, and more, and selling them on eBay for personal profit.

“The charges announced today reflect my Office’s continuing commitment to uncover official misconduct in San Francisco’s City government,” DA Brooke Jenkins said in a statement.  “The District Attorney’s Office's Public Integrity Task Force is dedicated to holding accountable those who steal public funds for their own ends.”

The DA’s office alleges that in February and March of 2019, Henriquez’s department approved invoices from RDJ Enterprises for “resiliency” grant items intended to buy earthquake supplies for neighborhood groups. These invoices totaled $14,000, and were billed as being for “Eureka Valley and Inner Sunset Supplies” and “Bayview and Excelsior Supplies.”

But according to a release from the DA’s office, “The actual items purchased were three Oculus virtual reality headsets, four Rylo Action cameras, an HDTV projector, a Nikon DSLR camera worth nearly $2,000, four GoPro cameras, three mini instant cameras, six Microsoft tablets, and four OSMO pocket cameras with expansion kits.” And according to an affidavit, Ellicott sold most of the stuff on eBay, with Henriquez selling a couple of the tablets herself.

Ellicott’s employer, the city’s Human Resources Department, was taken aback, and said they were unaware of any of this activity.

“Our foundational expectation is that all City employees behave ethically and with integrity in service to the residents of San Francisco,” department officials said in a statement to the Chronicle. “There is no excuse or place for this type of behavior in City government and anyone who participates in this type of misconduct should be held accountable.”

Ellicott’s arraignment has not yet been scheduled, according to the DA’s office.

Related: Florence Kong, Former SF Contractor Linked to Mohammed Nuru Bribery Ring, Gets One of the Largest Ethics Fines In City History [SFist]

Image: Uriel Soberanes via Unsplash

A current city grant program director and a former city employee who’s now a consultant stand accused of the grant director funneling projects to the consultant, who in return allegedly kicked back more than $200,000 in checks to the director and her family.

The Mohammed Nuru bribery scandal brought down well-known city officials and saw prominent local business barons charged. The newest SF public corruption scandal involves names and departments hardly anyone has ever heard of, though the accused parties allegedly pocketed comparable or even greater sums of cash. The Bay Area News Group reports that one current and one former SF city employee were charged with bribery, misappropriation of public money, and financial conflict of interest in what prosecutors say was a four-year scheme to route taxpayer dollars into their own pockets.

As DA Brooke Jenkins announced Tuesday, director of the SF Community Challenge Grant Program Lanita Henriquez is accused of purloining more than $200,000 in checks (some of which were also allegedly showered on her family members), after directing $1.4 million in contracts to the consultancy firm of Dwayne Jones, RDJ Enterprises. The investigation was a joint effort by the DA's office and the FBI. As NBC Bay Area explains, Jones is a former city employee who helped create the “Community Benefits Program” that ended up giving his firm that $1.4 million.

“Community Benefits,” indeed.

And to their credit, NBC Bay Area smelled a rat on this one back in December 2020. They noted that Jones was working for the SF Public Utilities Commission literally while his firm received contracts from that commission’s Community Benefits Program.      

“The charges announced today reflect my office’s on-going commitment to hold public officials accountable when they seek to enrich themselves at the public’s expense,” DA Jenkins said in a statement. “The public funds allocated to the City’s Community Challenge Grant Program are intended to benefit the communities of our City – not to line the pockets of government officials.”

Henriquez was arrested Tuesday morning, per the DA’s office, while Jones is still at large with an outstanding warrant. (Update: The SF Standard reports that Jones was arrested Wednesday afternoon and is being held on $50,000 bond.)

And according to the Bay Area News Group, “Calls to RDJ Enterprises were greeted with an answer and automated transfer to a sales pitch offering a special offer on a variety of products but no way of reaching Jones.”

Related: Chinese Tycoon Admits To Bribing Mohammed Nuru, Gets Sweetheart Plea Deal From Feds [SFist]

Image: David Vives via Unsplash

The former head of the SF Department of Building Inspection Commission might be looking at life behind bars, as Rodrigo Santos just pleaded guilty Friday to a slew of bank fraud, wire fraud, and tax evasion charges that, all combined, could total a prison sentence of more than 300 years.

Arguably the single funniest aspect to the now George R. R. Martin-esque-in-scope Mohammed Nuru scandal is the check forgery scheme of ex-DBI Commission President Rodrigo Santos. Once Santos left the Department of Building Inspection for private practice as an engineering consultant and permit expediter, he would ask his clients to make their checks out to “DBI.” And then, hilariously, as the prosecution showed, he would hand-alter the checks to say “RoDBIgo Santos,” and deposit/cash the checks himself. A crude scheme to be sure, except he got away with it more than 200 times, and to the tune of over $420,000.

But that was just one of the many splendored things Santos did in eventually ringing up more than $1.5 million in fraudulent checks siphoned into his bank account. And after being indicted not one, not two, but three times on bank and wire fraud charges, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California announced Friday that Santos has pleaded guilty to a long litany of fraud charges, plus tax evasion charges as the cherry on top.

“Santos pleaded guilty to ten counts of bank fraud, one count of honest services wire fraud, one count of falsifying records in a federal investigation, and five counts of tax evasion,” the Department of Justice said in a press release.

The falsifying records stuff is particularly bad, because Santos provided falsified records to the FBI. “On March 2, 2020, two FBI agents served him with a grand jury subpoena requesting documents related to six client checks connected to the above-described fraud schemes,” the release explains. “In response, Santos altered [engineering firm Santos & Urrutia] invoices to make it falsely appear that his clients had been credited for the checks, though Santos had fraudulently deposited them into his own personal bank account and had never credited his clients for those checks. He admitted that he forwarded the falsified invoices to the FBI knowing they were false and intending to obstruct the FBI’s investigation.”

As KPIX notes, “Each count of bank fraud carries a statutory maximum sentence of 30 years in prison. The count of honest services wire fraud carries a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years.” Adding this up, Santos’s prison sentence could theoretically amount to 330 years. That’s not likely to happen, but for a 64-year-old man, even a lenient sentence could land him behind bars for the rest of his life.

With guilty pleas now in place, Santos is scheduled to have his sentencing on June 23. It will also be interesting to see the plea and legal proceedings of billionaire Chinese developer and alleged prolific Nuru briber Zhang Li, now under house arrest in London and soon to be extradited to the U.S. to stand trial.

So while we refer to this wide-ranging web of misconduct as the “Mohammed Nuru scandal,” it could ironically end up that Nuru’s seven-year prison sentence is one of the shorter jail terms in this whole affair.

Related: Mohammed Nuru Sentenced to Seven Years for Fraud, Bribery [SFist]

Image: Santos & Urrutia

It's an ignominious end for Sheriff Laurie Smith, who served as Santa Clara County's top cop for the last 24 years before abruptly resigning Monday. A civil grand jury has found her guilty on all six counts she was charged with, including corruption and willful misconduct.

While Smith can't technically be removed from office by the jury's verdicts today, after she preempted this outcome by retiring two months early on Monday, the convictions are certainly a blow to Smith's image and reputation as she leaves office. Because this was a civil proceeding, the only negative outcome of a conviction was to be the loss of her position.

As the Mercury News reports, the jury returned Thursday with six guilty verdicts after beginning deliberations on October 28. Since late September, the jury has heard evidence and testimony from 40 witnesses about instances in which Smith directed her deputies and aides to issue gun permits in exchange for donations to the department. In one instance, it was 200 iPads donated by Apple in exchange for concealed-carry permits for the security team who protects CEO Tim Cook.

In another instance, Smith and some friends and supporters were gifted a luxury suite at a San Jose Sharks hockey game, and an aide testified that Smith had purchased three "nosebleed" seats elsewhere in the arena in an attempt to conceal the unreported gift.

Accusations that Smith's office doled out concealed-carry weapons (CCW) permits to friends and donors date back to 2011 at least. And critics have long contended that Smith didn't always play by the rules when it came to such schemes, and investigations into her department.

But the swirling of these latest accusations that culminated in the civil grand jury proceeding began in earnest in the summer of 2021, when the county board of supervisors took a vote of no confidence in Smith. Subsequently, criminal bribery indictments came down for two of Smith's high-ranking associates, former undersheriff Rick Sung and Capt. James Jensen relating to these CCW permits and illegal kickbacks. (Confusingly, retired sheriff’s captain Kevin Jensen [no relation?] is running to replace Smith in next week's election.) Sung quietly retired last month, and both men have yet to stand trial.

Also on Thursday, the grand jury convicted Smith of one count of willful misconduct in the handling of a county law-enforcement monitor’s probe into the case Andrew Hogan, the former inmate whose brain damage — which occurred while in sheriff's department custody — led to a $10 million damages settlement for the county. Hogan was left unrestrained in a van in 2018 while being transported to a psychiatric facility, and Smith was accused of not cooperating fully with the investigation into the conduct of deputies responsible for Hogan that day.

Anticipating at least one — but maybe not six — guilty verdicts, Smith and her attorney Allen Ruby opted to tender her resignation and announce her earlier-than-planned retirement on Monday, effective immediately. Smith had intended to stay in her role until January, when a newly elected sheriff took office, after announcing in March that she was not intending to seek re-election for another term. Prosecutors had offered to drop the charges against Smith back in July if she agreed to resign then, but instead she pressed forward with this trial.

Neither Smith nor her attorney offered any comment Thursday following the verdicts being read.

Previously: Santa Clara County Sheriff Laurie Smith Ends Career In Scandal, After Otherwise Distinguished Tenure

Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Disgraced former SF Public Works Director Mohammed Nuru was sentenced to seven years in prison Thursday afternoon, with prosecutors saying, “Mr. Nuru can still be Mr. Clean on the outside” but “deeply corrupt on the inside.”

There are probably still many more shoes to drop in the FBI public corruption probe of former SF Public Works director Mohammed Nuru, which came ro light two and a half years ago starting with steering city contracts to a bar owner he was friends with, then spread to Recology bribes, and also took down a laundry list of City Hall officials over Nuru’s doling out of city contracts in exchange for gifts and favors. Nuru took a plea deal in December and pled guilty to fraud weeks later, with federal prosecutors seeking a nine-year prison term and calling him a "quintessential grifter."

But the big Lefty O’Doul’s hand-carved enchilada was Nuru’s sentencing, scheduled for today in a U.S. District Court in San Francisco. And U.S. District Court Judge William Orrick sentenced Nuru to seven years in prison, according to KQED, plus “three years of supervised release.”

The sentence is a rejection of Nuru’s team’s request for a more lenient three-year sentence, plus the forfeiture of his ranch in Colusa County. Nuru got a longer seven-year sentence, and must still forfeit the ranch.

Nuru was able to pack the house with family members, supporters, and former colleagues Tuesday afternoon. But this was not a jury trial, and there was no guarantee any of that would sway Judge Orrick.

The Chronicle reports that “more than 100 family members, friends, Public Works employees, mentees and former colleagues who sent letters on Nuru’s behalf, praising his dedication as [a] single father and his work developing community gardens in Oakland and San Francisco.”

This did not affect Orrick’s sentencing. "If what you had done was a one-off occurrence, I would absolutely agree the leniency was called for,” Orrick said, according to KQED. “But you made the city's decision-making and competitive bidding a farce."

"By awarding [contractors] and favoring them in exchange for money, gifts, trips, a job for your son and construction for a home, a vacation home, what you've done is to question the fairness of every matter, every decision you made at DPW,” Orrick continued. “During my time on the bench, I've sentenced people for really horrible things, gang murders, and really deadly stuff. In many ways, what you've done is at least as reprehensible."

Referencing Nuru’s longtime Twitter handle “Mr. Clean,” federal prosecutors told Judge Orrick, “Mr. Nuru can still be Mr. Clean on the outside, his nickname, and still be deeply corrupt on the inside.”

The Chronicle provides a few examples. “Over a twelve year period from 2008 to 2020, Nuru exchanged preferential treatment and confidential bidding information for international trips, jewelry, high-end wine, envelopes of cash, kitchen appliances and construction work on his ranch in Colusa County, a sprawling home that Nuru partly financed with laundered bribes.”

“Chief among these bribes was $260,000 in construction work on the ranch from businessman Walter Wong,” that paper adds, “a John Deere tractor and attachments from Balmore Hernandez, Alan Varela and William Gilmartin; a $36,550 gold Rolex watch from businesswoman Florence Kong, and an annual $150,000 donation from the city’s garbage contractor, Recology, which Nuru split between a Public Works anti-litter campaign and a personal slush fund.”

This may feel like the end of the Mohammed Nuru scandal saga, but it probably is not the end of the larger public corruption fallout. (Will it nail Mayor Breed again? She was already hit with ethics fines over taking gifts from Nuru, took the gift of a Pride parade float from a Nuru co-conspirator, and of course, admitted a romantic involvement with Nuru, claiming it was “two decades ago.”)

But Breed is just one person in this scandal’s all-star cast, and as the FBI intriguingly notes above, “The #FBI investigation is ongoing.” We still have former Public Utilities Commission chiefs, local real estate magnates, and former DBI inspectors facing indictments and possible time behind bars. (And who is this unnamed “prominent developer” behind an additional $20,000 bribe? We don’t know but I bet you the FBI does.) Who knows what additional information these folks might disclose in hopes of  avoiding, say, seven years in prison and the loss of their fancy ranch.

All Previous Mohammed Nuru Coverage

Image: @MrCleanSF via Twitter