A 49-year-old SF deputy sheriff is currently in custody for what’s alleged to be a seven-month pattern of violence, stalking, and use of surveillance devices on his estranged partner.

News broke late Monday afternoon that a San Francisco deputy sheriff had been arrested on domestic violence and stalking charges, according to Bay City News. It’s unclear when 49-year-old deputy sheriff Jonathan Espiritu was in fact arrested, but Bay City News reports he was arraigned on Monday, and was “charged with multiple felonies related to allegations of domestic violence.”

Per a release from DA Brooke Jenkins’s office, Espiritu and the victim had an “on and off” dating relationship, which she tried to end. Espiritu allegedly strangled the victim in her home when she tried to break things off on August 14, 2023. He’s also alleged to have attacked her at her workplace on December 8 last year. Last month, he allegedly slapped her in her car “and then threatened to kill himself if she reported him to law enforcement,” according to Jenkins’s release. Then, last week, she says she found a tracking device had been placed on her vehicle.

Espiritu is charged with two counts of domestic violence, one count of assault likely to cause great bodily injury, two counts of false imprisonment, plus additional charges of stalking, domestic battery, dissuading a witness, unlawful use of an electronic tracking device, and obstruction of use of wireless device to summon assistance. He pleaded not guilty to all charges Monday.

“I would like to thank the survivor in this case for coming forward and reporting these crimes to law enforcement,” Jenkins said in the release. “My office will now do everything we can to ensure that there is accountability, and that justice is served.”

According to records, Espiritu is being held in Marin County Jail, though his next court date is at the SF Hall of Justice, on April 19 as KRON4 reports. That station adds that he has been detained and not granted bail, though Jenkins’s release indicates he could be afforded bail “at a future hearing.”

While Espiritu has been charged and arraigned, this remains an active investigation. Anyone with information is asked to call the SFPD tip line at 415-575-4444, or text a tip to TIP411 and begin the message with “SFPD.” Tipsters can remain anonymous.

If you or someone you love is a domestic violence victim, you can call 9-1-1 in an emergency, and the National Domestic Violence Hotline offers additional support at (800) 799-7233.

Related: Report: SF Sheriff's Deputy from Infamous 2015 Scandal Forcing Inmates to Fight Just Got Himself Rehired [SFist]

Image: Joe Kukura, SFist

A San Francisco man is finally facing jail time after his third arrest for threatening Bay Area synagogues, and he’s previously served time for stalking children at a Pac Heights elementary school.

SF DA Brooke Jenkins announced a conviction Monday afternoon of 39-year-old Anatoly Smolkin, for threatening to blow up a synagogue in the Inner Richmond, according to KPIX. As a release from the DA’s office explains, “On April 7, 2022, at about 12:05 PM, Mr. Smolkin walked to the front entrance of Temple Emanu-El and threatened to kill everyone there and blow up the synagogue.”

But Smolkin, who suffers from mental illness, has threatened two other Bay Area synagogues in the past, and has previously served prison time for 47 counts of stalking in a bizarre case involving a Pacific Heights elementary school.

"Criminal threats to blow up houses of worship that have been historically targeted must be taken seriously and aggressively prosecuted," Jenkins’s office said in the release. "Violent threats often come before violence, and it is imperative that we take steps to proactively protect the public."

Oh, does Smolkin have a history, and he was previously an attorney but he’s been long disbarred. Berkeleyside reported in 2021 that he was arrested for interrupting a Berkeley synagogue service and shouting that the Jewish people there were “going to burn in hell” and “going to pay for what you did to me.” A mere two months later, the Jewish News of Northern California notes he threatened families and children at SF’s Congregation Beth Sholom, and sent threatening emails to staff.  

And he’s even served prison time before for a bizarre pattern of stalking in 2013, which netted 30 felony counts and 17 misdemeanors. In that series of incidents, Smolkin stalked employees at his former workplace, threatened to kill a police officer, and stalked children at the Town School for Boys (which was his own elementary school) in Pacific Heights.

And so it will be prison again for Smolkin when he is sentenced on August 28. He faces up to six years.

Related: Alleged Synagogue Shooter Pleads Not Guilty, But Gets Denied Release From Jail [SFist]

At a sentencing hearing Thursday morning that was frequently interrupted by Bill Gene Hobbs mercilessly heckling his own victims, the convicted sexual assault suspect received a jail sentence totaling five and a half years.

The wheels of justice probably could have moved more quickly and efficiently in the prosecution of serial stalker, groper, and sexual harasser Bill Gene Hobbs. But on Thursday morning, this chapter in his creepy saga ended in a way that will hopefully bring his many victims some closure.

The public at large first became aware of Hobbs’s disturbing patterns in July 2021 when we learned that Hobbs had stalked and grabbed a 15-year-old girl in West Portal, and had previously been accused of stripping his clothes off and chasing a woman in Glen Canyon.

Those revelations brought more San Francisco women out of the woodwork to describe their own assault incidents that Hobbs instigated, leading to his eventual arrest last October. Hobbs went to trial for sexual assault last month, where a jury found him guilty on nine counts.

And on Thursday morning, the Chronicle reports Hobbs was sentenced to five and a half years behind bars by San Francisco Superior Court Judge Harry Dorfman.

“Everybody in this town, man or woman, especially women, needs to feel safe,” Dorfman said at the sentencing, according to the SF Standard. “This is not a case where Mr. Hobbs inappropriately touched one or two or three women. The jury returned verdicts as to nine separate cases.”

The sentence is fairly complicated, and Hobbs will get credit for more than a year of time already served. But he still gets a two and a half year sentence in SF County Jail, and then state prison for three years on his felony charge.

Two of his victims spoke at the sentencing, and Hobbs frequently and cruelly interrupted them with outbursts.

One of his victims, identified as Karina, described how Hobbs groped her while she was jogging, leaving her with extended periods of panic attacks and night terrors. “The assault I experienced has completely changed my life,” she said at the sentencing.

To which Hobbs snapped back, “Wow, get over yourself,” per the SF Standard.

At his trial in May, Hobbs was convicted on one felony count of false imprisonment, and eight misdemeanor counts of assault, battery, sexual battery. He will also be forced to register as a sex offender.

Related: Accused Serial Groper Bill Gene Hobbs Found Guilty On Nine Counts [SFist]

Image via USF

A man who believed that a guy was following him down Market Street might have been onto something, as he was robbed him the moment he tried to take a photo of his suspected stalker.

Police say that the victim, a 66-year-old man, was walking on the 1500 block of Market Street, which is between Van Ness Avenue and Franklin Street, at 8:50 p.m. Tuesday when the mugging occurred.

According to the San Francisco Police Department, the victim noticed a man in his 20s walking behind him, and thought that the guy might be following him. The victim then took a photo of his suspected stalker, which police say caused the suspect to confront his photographer.

During the confrontation, a second suspect (also male, also in his 20s) approached the two men and joined the argument. Together, the suspects attacked the victim and stole his cell phone, then fled on foot in an unknown direction.

The victim complained of pain but refused medical attention, according to the SFPD. The suspects remain at large, police say, and no arrests have been made in the case.

On Monday morning around 8:30 a.m. Mary Freeman, a 48-year-old homeless woman, was found dead on the sidewalk near 15th Street and San Bruno Avenue on the edge of the Mission and Potrero Hill. Meron Tesfamariam, a 30-year-old homeless man with a history of stalking, was arrested on suspicion of killing Freeman.

Tesfamariam was known to neighborhood police because he was a former patient at the Mission Neighborhood Health Center at 16th and Shotwell Streets, a few blocks from where Freeman's body was found. Although police have not released the details of the suspected homicide, Tesfamariam had a restraining order against him for stalking a female clinic employee on several occasions between August and October of last year. As the Chronicle reports, Tesfamariam once followed the employee and her co-worker as they walked her daughter to school.

Tesfamariam was booked on suspicion of murder, exhibiting a deadly weapon and "carrying a dirk or dagger." He is currently being held without bail.

Anyone who may have additional information about the homeless woman's death is encouraged to call SFPD's homicide squad at (415) 553-1145, the anonymous tipline at (415) 575-4444 or via text to TIP411 with “SFPD” in the message.

[BCN/Appeal]
[Chron]

by Andrew Dalton

Those of you that like to bemoan San Francisco's notoriously lacking female population might be interested in the mostly self-explanatory services provided by Wheretheladies.at, a new mobile site designed to point eligible bachelors (and potential lookie-loos, if we're being honest) in the direction of the closest bar or venue with the most significant population of ladyfolk. After trolling Foursquare data for checkins by anyone with a ladylike first name, the site presents users with a giant compass arrow that will keep them from straying into some joint with a less favorable gender ratio.

Disappointingly, the screencapped example on Techcrunch didn't exactly yield any surprising results and in fact pointed to two of EaterSF's douchiest bars in San Francisco: Zeitgeist with 29 ladies, followed by Bar None in the Marina with 20 members of the fairer sex. To be fair though, this could be a really interesting way to draw a hetero crowd to the next Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence bingo night.

[Techcrunch] via [Eater]

Holy Moses. SF Examiner columnist Ken Garcia has a fan.