Former Department of Building Inspection “Employee of the Quarter” Bernard Curran was arrested Friday, and charged with perjury and violating conflict of interest laws, in the latest batch of tentacles spawned by the Mohammed Nuru scandal.
Well, you can’t say that San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin is “letting criminals roam free” when it comes to white-collar criminal suspects in city departments accused of shady dealings with crooked real estate developers. In a bombshell Friday morning announcement, Boudin’s office announced that scandal-plagued former Department of Building Inspection inspector Bernard Curran had “surrendered on a District Attorney arrest warrant alleging multiple counts of perjury and violations of local conflict of interest laws.”
Congratulations to our Employee of the Quarter Senior Building Inspector Bernie Curran! pic.twitter.com/UyNpyUuVda
— SF Department of Building Inspection (@sfdbi) April 20, 2016
Above we see Curran in happier times (far right, holding the plaque), accepting his Employee of the Quarter award in 2016. And hey, is that also allegedly bribe-taking former DBI director Tom Hui on the far left? Yah sure, you betcha! But in the DBI’s defense, as many as two people in that photograph are unlikely to face any prison time.
“My office is committed to rooting out public corruption and ensuring equal justice under the law,” DA Boudin said in a release. “In my administration, no one is above the law—and public officials who breach public trust will be held accountable.”
Curran is charged with bribery and not disclosing financial conflicts of interest, both stemming from the same off-the-books $180,000 loan he received from the father of the owner of developer SIA Consulting, whose properties Curran was tasked with inspecting. The conflict of interest is from inspecting his secret creditors’ buildings, the perjury is for failing to mention this on required financial disclosure statements. Curran was already charged by the feds for permit fraud in August.
While Curran was arrested Friday, it’s unclear at the moment whether he posted bail, or what that bail was. He’s scheduled to be arraigned on March 17, 2022.
Image: @sfdbi via Twitter
