Stanley Ellicott, a former City of San Francisco worker who has already been indicted in a kickback scheme, now faces new charges that he created an elaborate fake company to siphon off more than half a million dollars of city funds into his own pockets.
The new case alleges that Ellicott, who faces 62 felony charges, including money laundering, grand theft and insurance fraud, allegedly stole $627,000 from the city from 2019 to 2024, the District Attorney’s Office said in an announcement Thursday.
The new case is the latest recent corruption allegation to besmirch the city’s inner workings. Just last week, a four-year prison sentence was handed down to the former San Francisco Public Utilities Commission head for his part in a separate corruption scheme, which was linked to a yearslong series of federal prosecutions.
According to the district attorney, as a Department of Human Resources employee, Ellicott was in charge of certain privileged information regarding workers’ compensation claims filed by city employees. In that position, he made payments on those claims, which gave him sole access to a walled-off financial account not reviewed by other city entities.
Ellicott used his control of that account to tack on payments to the transactions that looked like small fees. But they were paid to a fake company he created. It even had a website with images of staff and contact information.
The scheme started when Ellicott enlisted a friend to register the fake business in Illinois, according to San Francisco’s DA. A bank account was then created for the business. Ellicott added the fake business as a vendor in the workers’ compensation system and billed San Francisco for “more than 600 workers’ compensation claims with charges for auditing services,” according to the DA’s Office.
City payments to the company were then transferred into Ellicott’s personal checking account to look like they were payroll payments. He transferred more than $488,000 from the fake business’s account.
The Illinois business’s website was created in Oakland, where Ellicott lives. On several occasions, the company sent emails to Ellicott’s work email.
The company, Independent Auditors Group, says on its website that it provides a range of financial services and, with images of its leadership team, appears to be just what it claims.
But the lengths Ellicott went to cover his tracks appear to go far beyond the creation of a simple website.
