SAN FRANCISCO – Alan Varela and William Gilmartin III appeared in federal court today and each pleaded guilty to the charge of conspiracy to commit honest services wire fraud, announced Acting United States Attorney Stephanie M. Hinds and Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agent in Charge Craig D. Fair.  Gilmartin further agreed in his plea agreement to cooperate with federal investigators in the San Francisco City Hall corruption investigation. 

“Contractors with San Francisco like Alan Varela, William Gilmartin, and their ilk are not off the radar of our San Francisco City Hall corruption investigation just because they are not public officials,” said Acting United States Attorney Stephanie M. Hinds.  “If you bribe a public official and our investigation uncovers it, you will face justice.  Involved individuals who come to the FBI with what they know about bribes and kickbacks will be treated differently than those who don’t and get caught.”

“The investigation into San Francisco city government continues and we believe there are even more city employees and contractors who may have pertinent first-hand knowledge of the insidious corruption plaguing San Francisco,” said FBI Special Agent in Charge Craig D. Fair. “Instead of waiting for the FBI to knock on your door, we encourage others who have knowledge of this corruption to reach out to us and cooperate with our investigation.”

Today’s developments follow the September 17, 2020, federal complaint charging Varela, 59, of Orinda, and Gilmartin, 60, of San Mateo, with bribery of a public official.  According to that complaint affidavit, Varela and Gilmartin, the president and vice-president of a Bay Area civil engineering and construction firm, respectively, provided gifts and benefits to Mohammed Nuru, then Director of San Francisco’s Department of Public Works (DPW), in exchange for inside information about an upcoming lucrative San Francisco public contract.  Varela and Gilmartin were the seventh and eighth defendants charged in the federal San Francisco City Hall graft probe that has to this date charged a dozen defendants.

Varela’s plea agreement expounds on those complaint allegations.  Varela admitted in his plea agreement that from 2013 until January 28, 2020 (the day of Nuru’s arrest), he conspired with his co-defendant Gilmartin, Balmore Hernandez – a construction company CEO who earlier pled guilty and is cooperating with the FBI – and others to pay bribes and kickbacks to Nuru.  Nuru’s position as DPW Director provided him great influence over San Francisco public contracts, permits, and construction projects as well as other City departments and private companies requiring contracts from DPW.  The bribes and kickbacks to Nuru were intended to influence his conduct in official actions.  The items of value Varela and his co-conspirators provided to Nuru included cash, equipment for Nuru’s ranch, free meals and entertainment, and the prospect of portions of the proceeds from the expected awards of City contracts.

Varela further admitted that he and his co-conspirators focused on winning a DPW contract and a related Port of San Francisco lease to operate an asphalt recycling plant and a concrete plant on the Port of San Francisco’s land.  According to Varela’s plea agreement, Nuru agreed in exchange for cash and other valuables to use his official position to get Varela and his co-conspirators’ bid selected.  Nuru began sending early drafts of San Francisco’s Request for Proposals for the asphalt recycling plant project as well as other inside information to Varela and his co-conspirators to better position them to have their bid selected.  Nuru also regularly met with Gilmartin and Hernandez to discuss the plans over expensive restaurant dinners, always paid for by Gilmartin. 

According to Varela’s plea agreement, Gilmartin arranged to compensate Nuru by asking an unnamed company to award a $100,000 contract to Balmore Hernandez.  The proceeds of that contract were intended to pay Nuru, and Hernandez used the proceeds to benefit Nuru.  Once the co-conspirators’ bid was selected in September 2015, Nuru continued to meet with Varela and the co-conspirators and supply additional inside information, all over meals paid for by Gilmartin that ultimately totaled approximately $20,000.  At one point during discussions, Nuru requested a tractor for his ranch.  Varela admitted that in February 2019 he coordinated with Gilmartin and Hernandez to deliver the tractor to Nuru. 

In January 2020, while the asphalt recycling plant agreements with DPW and the Port of San Francisco were still being finalized, Nuru was arrested.

Gilmartin also pleaded guilty today to the charge of conspiracy to commit honest services wire fraud.  The terms of his plea agreement require Gilmartin to cooperate with the ongoing investigation and surrender assets acquired as a result of his illegal conduct.  The criminal conduct Gilmartin admits was submitted to the Court in a separate “Exhibit A” that is filed under seal and thus unavailable to the public at this time.  

Varela and Gilmartin both entered their guilty pleas before United States District Judge William H. Orrick. Judge Orrick set Varela’s sentencing hearing for September 16, 2021, at 1:30 p.m.  Gilmartin’s next hearing date is a status conference set for December 2, 2021, at 1:30 p.m.

Varela and Gilmartin each pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit honest services wire fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1343, 1346 and 1349.  The charge carries a maximum statutory penalty of 20 years in prison and a fine of $250,000 or not more than the greater of twice the gross gain or twice the gross loss.  However, any sentence following conviction would be imposed by the Court only after consideration of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and the federal statute governing the imposition of a sentence, 18 U.S.C. § 3553. 

The prosecution is being handled by the Corporate Fraud Strike Force in the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California and is the result of an investigation by the FBI. 

The post Northern District of California | Two Metropolis Contractors Plead Responsible To Cost Of Seven Yr Conspiracy To Bribe San Francisco Metropolis Corridor Official appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

SAN FRANCISCO – Two former San Francisco Department of Building Inspection (DBI) construction plan engineers have been charged in federal court with participating in an honest services wire fraud conspiracy for accepting bribes in return for expediting and approving building and construction plan permits, announced Attorney for the United States Thomas A. Colthurst and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Special Agent in Charge Robert K. Tripp.

According to a criminal Information filed on November 2, 2023, Rodolfo “Rudy” Pada, 68, of Millbrae, California, began accepting bribes in 2003 and continued to do so until he retired in September 2017. The Information alleges the bribes consisted of cash, free meals, drinks, and other benefits bestowed upon Pada by executives at a construction planning and design firm in return for Pada expediting and approving permits for building and construction plans. In addition, Pada is alleged to have solicited, accepted, and concealed an interest-free $85,000 loan facilitated by a construction planning and design firm executive.

According to a separate Information filed on November 2, 2023, Cyril Yu, 41, of San Francisco, began accepting bribes in January 2018 and continued to do so until February 2021. The Information alleges the bribes consisted of cash, free meals, drinks, and other benefits bestowed upon Yu by executives at a construction planning and design firm in return for Yu expediting and approving permits for building and construction plans.

The Informations allege that DBI is a regulatory agency in the City and County of San Francisco responsible for overseeing enforcement of building, electrical, plumbing, and housing codes for San Francisco’s more than 200,000 commercial and residential buildings. According to the Informations, contractors and builders submit construction plans to DBI for approval and permitting; the plans must be reviewed and approved by DBI to ensure that proposed construction plans meet City codes and regulations.

An information merely alleges that crimes have been committed, and all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Pada and Yu were each charged with one count of conspiracy to commit honest services wire fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1349. If convicted, each defendant faces a maximum sentence of 20 years imprisonment, and a fine of up to $250,000. However, any sentence following conviction would be imposed by the court after consideration of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and the federal statute governing the imposition of a sentence, 18 U.S.C. § 3553.

The case is being prosecuted by the Corporate and Securities Fraud Section of the United States Attorney’s Office. Assistant U.S. Attorneys David Ward and Ilham Hosseini are prosecuting the case, which is the result of an investigation by the FBI

The post Northern District of California | Two Former San Francisco Division Of Constructing Inspection Engineers Charged With Trustworthy Providers Fraud Conspiracy appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Jesalyn Harper, the only full-time code enforcement officer for the small, agricultural city of Reedley in California’s Central Valley, was responding to a complaint about vehicles parked in the loading dock of a cold-storage warehouse when she noticed a foul smell and saw a garden hose snaking into the old building.

A woman in a lab coat answered her knock, and behind her were two others in plastic gloves and blue surgical masks, packing pregnancy tests for shipping. Harper said they spoke broken English and told her they were from China. Walking through the lab, she found dozens of refrigerators and ultralow-temperature freezers hooked to illegal wiring; vials of blood and jars of urine in shelves and plastic containers; and about 1,000 white lab mice being kept in crowded, soiled containers.

The women said the owner lived in China, provided a phone number and email address and asked her to leave. Alarmed by what she saw, Harper, whose work mostly entails ensuring people have permits for yard sales and are keeping their lawns mowed, contacted Fresno County health officials and then the FBI.

The discovery last December launched investigations by federal, state and local authorities who found no criminal activity at the medical lab owned by Prestige Biotech Inc., a company registered in Las Vegas, and no evidence of a threat to public health or national security. Nonetheless, it was just the beginning of a case that this summer fueled fears, rumors and conspiracy theories online about China purportedly trying to engineer biological weapons in rural America.

During a March inspection of the lab in Reedley, a city of about 25,000 people some 200 miles (320 kilometers) southeast of San Francisco, officials did find infectious agents in the refrigerators including E. coli, coronavirus, malaria, hepatitis B and C, dengue, chlamydia, human herpes, rubella and HIV.

But the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said there was no sign that the lab was illegally in possession of the materials or had select agents or toxins that could be used as bioweapons.

“CDC has taken no further action in this matter,” the agency said in an email to The Associated Press, referring further questions to county and state officials.

After company representatives stopped communicating with city and county officials, they got a court order to shut down the operation, euthanized the mice and cleaned the biological materials. Officials thought that would be the end of it.

Then on July 25, the Mid Valley Times, a local online news outlet, published a story about the lab that quoted court documents saying a representative of Prestige Biotech, which makes pregnancy and coronavirus tests sold online, told officials in March that the mice had been genetically modified to catch and carry the virus that causes COVID-19.

That was likely a miscommunication by Prestige Biotech representative Wang Zhaolin, whose English is not perfect, Harper said.

“She stated that the mice were bred, and then she hesitated and said they were modified to carry COVID,” Harper said Zhaolin told her and other officials. After the lab was shut down, she added, Wang stopped cooperating with them.

Wang’s comment prompted Reedley authorities to hire Nina Hahn, an attending veterinarian at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, to examine the mice. Hahn found they had not been injected with any infectious agent and were simply used to grow COVID-19 antibody cells to make testing kits. She also determined they were not subjected to experimentation, Harper said.

But that hasn’t stopped the furor, however.

After the Mid Valley Times article, national media outlets published stories saying the lab had bioengineered mice to carry COVID-19. A Fresno city official questioned the lab’s proximity to Lemoore Naval Air Station, about 35 miles (55 kilometers) away in neighboring Kings County. In a war with China, the official said, fighter jets would deploy from the base.

Last week House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican who represents a Congressional district neighboring Reedley’s, said during a visit to a nearby town that he plans to raise concerns over the “very disturbing” case with colleagues on the Select Committee on China and follow up with the FBI.

“My concern is to get to the bottom of what happened here but to also look at where this is happening in other parts of this country as well,” McCarthy said.

Lok Siu, a professor of Asian American and Asian diaspora studies at the University of California, Berkeley, said the fears being fanned online reflect anti-Chinese sentiments that have existed in the United States for centuries and were heightened during the pandemic.

“Ultimately all Chinese people are connected to the Chinese state. They’re not given the ability to act as responsible or irresponsible individuals and they are seen as agents, and the only reason for that is because ethnic Chinese people are seen as not loyal and always foreign,” Siu said.

In Reedley, where the laboratory failed to officially register, officials took a dim view of the operation.

“They were bad actors. They never came to the city and they moved in in the middle of the night. Those are pretty big elements that tell us they did not want us to know they were here,” said Nicole Zieba, Reedley’s city manager.

The California Department of Public Health said in a statement that all clinical laboratories must get state and federal licenses to operate, and it is still investigating whether Prestige Biotech has a state license. Federal officials said they found no illegalities.

Several Prestige Biotech representatives including attorney Michael Lin in Las Vegas did not respond to emailed requests for comment sent by AP.

There were also questions from some about why the federal investigation was not made public until the Mid Valley Times reported on it.

Zieba said that early on, state and federal officials advised the city to not share information with the public about the lab, which had been operating illegally in the city since October 22, because the investigation was still ongoing.

And after California’s Department of Toxic Substances Control checked the air and water and found no threat, she decided to heed that advice.

“It was fairly quickly apparent to us that there was nothing airborne, nothing in the water, nothing in the sewer system, so our public was safe,” Zieba said. “Had there been any hazard to their safety, we would have immediately notified the public.”

Reedley officials said what has been most concerning about the discovery was finding out there is no single government entity overseeing private medical laboratories.

“What’s frustrating is that we’re focusing on these myths, bioengineered weapons and stuff like that, rather than the real issue, the lack of regulation of these private labs,” Harper said.

Follow @ktar923

The post A bootleg, Chinese language-owned lab fueled conspiracy theories. However officers say it posed no hazard appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

SAN FRANCISCO – A federal indictment filed today charges Harlan Kelly, former general manager of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (PUC), and Victor Makras, a locally known San Francisco real estate investor, of bank fraud and bank fraud conspiracy. announced Acting US Attorney Stephanie M. Hinds, Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Envoy Craig D. Fair, and Internal Revenue Service Special Envoy Mark H. Pearson. The indictment also alleges honest wire fraud and honest wire fraud conspiracy in connection with a bribery program first brought against Kelly in a November 2020 federal complaint. This lawsuit is being replaced by today’s federal prosecution.

Today’s indictment, like the November 2020 complaint, alleges that Kelly, 59, was involved in a longstanding bribery program and corrupt partnership with someone named “Contractor No. 1” in the indictment. Kelly was named general manager of the San Francisco PUC in 2012 and held that position until November 30, 2020 when he resigned after filing a criminal complaint in the federal complaint. Contractor # 1 is a senior construction company officer in San Francisco and a permit expediting consultant who directed or controlled several companies doing business with the city of San Francisco. Today’s indictment alleges that Kelly provided the # 1 contractor with confidential PUC internal documents and information in order to give the # 1 contractor a competitive edge in public procurement competitions. In turn, # 1 Contractor showered Kelly with personal financial benefits, including discounted construction work for Kelly’s residence and an international vacation for Kelly and his family, with # 1 Contractor paying hotel fees, hundreds of dollars for meals, and jewelry.

The other charges in the indictment, first made public today, describe the conduct that led to the bank fraud and bank fraud charges against Kelly and Victor Makras. Makras, 63, a San Francisco resident, is a San Francisco real estate agent and the director of Makras Real Estate. He also brokered a consortium of individual real estate investors (referred to here as Makras investors) who jointly issued residential real estate loans backed by real estate in the San Francisco Bay Area and real estate elsewhere. Makras has served on a number of San Francisco commissions and boards, including the San Francisco PUC, the San Francisco Port Commission, and the San Francisco Employees Retirement System Board.

According to the indictment allegations, Kelly and Makras have conspired to defraud Quicken Loans, the financial institution, with a $ 1.3 million real estate loan to Kelly. The indictment describes that when Kelly and Makras applied for the $ 1.3 million loan to Quicken Loans, they falsely represented an excessive amount of debt that Kelly owed Makras Investors on his existing home loan. This falsely inflated amount enabled Kelly to obtain a larger loan amount from Quicken Loans at a lower loan rate. The alleged conspiracy also included hiding Kelly’s other outstanding debts from Quicken Loans, including thousands of dollars given to Contractor No. The program also included the repayment of Kelly’s undisclosed debt with the loan proceeds from Quicken Loans. The undisclosed debt is believed to have been paid by Makras in a method designed to hide the fact that Quicken Loans’ loan proceeds were used to repay those other debts.

Kelly is out of custody and will appear for the first time on the indictment tomorrow, October 20, at 10:30 am in the United States Federal Court of Justice, Thomas S. Hixson.

Makras is out of custody and his first appearance in today’s indictment has not yet been determined.

Kelly is charged with honest service fraud and conspiracy to commit honest service bank fraud in violation of 18 USC Sections 1343, 1346 and 1349. If convicted, each charge carries a maximum statutory 20 year sentence in prison and a fine of $ 250,000 or double gross profit or loss. Kelly and Makras are both charged on bank fraud charges and bank fraud conspiracy charges in violation of 18 USC §§ 1344 (1), (2) and 1349. If convicted, each charge has a maximum statutory penalty of 30 years imprisonment and a fine of $ 1,000,000 or no more than double gross profit or loss. However, a post-conviction penalty would be imposed by the court only after taking into account the US Sentencing Guidelines and the Federal Act on the Imposing of a Penalty, 18 USC § 3553.

The allegations in the indictment are mere allegations. As in any criminal proceeding, the accused is presumed innocent unless proven guilty in court.

This case is part of a larger state investigation aimed at public corruption in the city and county of San Francisco. Twelve people have been charged so far, including two senior San Francisco officials, Mohammed Nuru and Harlan Kelly. Several city contractors and mediators were charged. According to charges against Mohammed Nuru and others, Nuru allegedly accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes in cash, meals and work in his vacation home from contractors who received public contracts in San Francisco.

The case is being pursued by the US Attorney’s Corporate and Securities Fraud Team. The case is being investigated by the FBI and the Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI).

The post Federal Costs In opposition to Former San Francisco PUC Normal Supervisor Expanded To Embrace Financial institution Fraud Conspiracy | USAO-NDCA appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

John Oliver and Last Week Tonight returned from vacation to take on one of the loudest members of the conspiracy theory media – Alex Jones.

Most of us understand that Alex Jones – who shouts that tap water makes everyone gay and claims that the Sandy Hook massacre was orchestrated by the US government – is spreading unadulterated nonsense. In fact, according to Oliver, “the first thing you should know about the Alex Jones Show is ideally nothing”. Or, as John Oliver Jones colorfully described, he is “the Walter Cronkite of the screeching bats *** gorilla clowns”.

Why is John Oliver talking about this man?

It actually doesn’t have much to do with the fact that Trump is apparently a fan, nor does it have to do with the time Jones called Last Week Tonight on his own show InfoWars. Incidentally, that appeal included a sneaky compliment on Oliver’s presumably intellectual British accent. Wrong, said Oliver: “I sound like a chimney sweep going through a wood chopper.”

Joking aside, however, there are some serious problems with Jones’ show InfoWars. There’s the frankly horrific speculation about the Sandy Hook massacre, not to mention a cornucopia of paranoia, barely veiled homophobia, and Jones yelling about Satanists. Jones also promoted the “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory, which resulted in an actual gunman threatening innocent people in a Washington, DC pizza restaurant.

InfoWars’ source of income

However, “there is a context that you may be less aware of”: the show itself and Jones’ special way of making money. It takes four hours and Jones is always sending products on the air. In fact, Jones spent almost a quarter of the time selling InfoWars on their website. Including wet wipes, herbal shampoo and a “Bill Clinton Rape Whistle”, which is nothing more than a pipe on a lanyard for 6.00 US dollars.

Also, Jones’s store sells some high-priced wet wipes that awkwardly assure you that they are safe to use on the dam. This also means, by the way, that in Last Week Tonight you get a pretty straightforward illustration of what a perineum is.

Apart from that (and if you metaphorically wipe the image of a perineum out of your head), about two-thirds of the revenue from the InfoWars shop comes from a variety of high-priced vitamins and “nutriceutics”. These include products called Child Ease, Brain Force Plus, and DNA Force, the last of which is $ 120.00 per bottle. There is also a “Caveman True Paleo Formula,” which contains ground chicken bones and chocolate powder. Alex Jones claimed that “the ancients had better bones” for shilling the caveman formula.

John Oliver had a glass on the show and gave it a, say, bad review. “It’s coming at you in waves,” he said.

Jones now employs a consultant to support these products, a Dr. Edward Group III. Group claims that “I do research all the time” to bolster its credentials, and also says refugees spread disease – which, of course, means you should buy a supposedly immune-boosting dietary supplement.

Unfortunately, Group isn’t exactly an accredited doctor. Group graduated from Texas Chiropractic College with a degree in chiropractic. However, he did not graduate from a bachelor’s degree and only completed a non-degree certificate program from MIT. In fact, Last Week Tonight contacted MIT about the group’s participation there. In response, MIT said that “it is incorrect to say he graduated from MIT” and that it would be “imprecise and misleading to call him an alumni”.

Well, all of these things aren’t cheap even if you can get them for a much lower price elsewhere. Jones justifies this by saying things like “you absorb it more” and that cheaper competition “will kill you.”

What is Jones doing with all that money?

By the way, where does all the money go? Alex Jones claims all of the revenue goes into his show. Not to mention, it takes approximately $ 45 million to run the show, which is itself subject to “massive, ongoing economic attack”. He also asks viewers to “give me the energy and I will attack the enemy”.

Jones makes it sound like InfoWars is constantly on the verge of closing. However, ex-employees say his business is thriving. Jones seems to be particularly fond of Rolexes, of which Oliver counted at least three individual pieces. Which is fine on its own but doesn’t go well with its message of scrap and fight.

Jones awkwardly argued that he was disguising himself as a Rolex-adorned Satanist to … uh … show the world that … uh, “none of this means anything.” Well saved there. Even so, Jones should have to work so hard to prove his point. According to Oliver, “torturing Sandy Hook’s parents should get you comfortably into Satan’s club.”

So, “when you play [the clips] In context, “Oliver said of Alex Jones,” he looks like a seasoned salesman … selling you an answer. “As a particularly illustrative example, Oliver played a clip in which Jones claims that there are chemicals in the water, all of them feminize and lower fertility rates. Then he turns around and happens to be selling a bunch of expensive water filters.

Next: John Oliver takes over local television

Oliver then brought in Jack McBrayer as “Dr. Ted Throup III ”to sell the John Oliver Moisture-Armored Tactical Assault Wipe exclusively for the dam. “For God’s sake, don’t use this anywhere else.”

Fortunately, you can actually purchase these things from infowipes.com for $ 1,000,000. Incidentally, this amount goes entirely to Doctors Without Borders. Could it be worth the cost? According to “Dr. Ted Throup ”, the other towels will kill you while these“ frogs can heterosexualize ”. Thank god, we guess.

The post John Oliver takes on Alex Jones and profitable conspiracy theories appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

SAN FRANCISCO – Former San Francisco officer Sandra Zuniga, charged yesterday with conspiracy to commit money laundering, agreed to plead guilty and to work with federal investigators on the San Francisco City Hall corruption investigation in a consent form filed today . announced acting US attorney Stephanie M. Hinds, Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Representative Craig D. Fair, and Internal Revenue Service – Criminal Investigation Special Representative Michael Daniels.

“Today a senior San Francisco City Hall official agreed to plead guilty to our political corruption investigation and will work with the FBI against others involved,” said acting United States attorney Stephanie M. Hinds. “This investigation continues, but the window of opportunity for collaboration is closing. If you are involved in public corruption at any level, check with the FBI before the FBI reaches out to you. Early collaboration is always rated positively. ”

“The FBI is very interested in interviewing employees and contractors of the San Francisco city government who may know firsthand about this public corruption scandal,” said FBI special agent Craig D. Fair contractors who may have relevant knowledge that are critical to the ongoing investigation. In her plea agreement, Sandra Zuniga agreed to work with the FBI. We encourage others who know to do the same. “

“Sandra Zuniga thought she could bypass the law,” said IRS Criminal Investigation, Special Agent in charge Michael Daniels. “Through numerous financial transactions over a period of nearly a decade, she attempted to hide the true source of Mohammed Nuru’s funds. No official should be allowed to behave as if he were above the law. “

Today’s developments follow a federal complaint dated June 3, 2020 accusing 45-year-old Zuniga of South San Francisco of being involved in a money laundering conspiracy. This earlier complaint against Zuniga followed allegations of corruption against Mohammed Nuru, then director of the Public Works Department (DPW) in San Francisco. The charges against Nuru allege that he had plans to bribe a San Francisco airport inspector and accept bribes from people doing business with DPW and the city. Several people have been accused of bribing Nuru and some have pleaded guilty and are cooperating with the government investigation.

In the federal complaint against Zuniga dated June 3, 2020, it was alleged that she laundered the proceeds of Nuru’s programs from 2014 to January 2020. The Zuniga complaint details how she made cash deposits in excess of her San Francisco government paychecks by tens of thousands of dollars. She allegedly deposited checks from Nuru employees and tracked those deposits with transactions that benefited Nuru. For example, the complaint alleged that Zuniga had been making monthly mortgage payments on Nuru’s Colusa County vacation home for years, almost always after depositing approximately $ 1,000 in cash in her own checking account and then writing a check for $ 1,000 to pay Nuru’s monthly mortgage bill . The complaint also lists a series of transactions in September 2018 in which Zuniga received a check for USD 5,000 from a contractor doing business with DPW and the City of San Francisco deposited that check, a series of transactions with those funds through various banks and then paid a $ 2,400 building bill for Nuru’s vacation home by writing a check for $ 2,500 to herself, transferring it to another bank account, and sending a check from that account to the builder for Nuru’s account to pay. In another example, Zuniga made two cash deposits totaling $ 5,600 into her account on one day in May 2014. Four days later, she wrote a check for $ 3,800 to Nuru and paid $ 1,000 for Nuru’s mortgage bill the next day. In addition, the June 2020 complaint against Zuniga describes how she traveled to South America with Nuru on a lavish two-week trip to South America in the fall of 2018, with business class flights and Ritz-Carlton accommodations all subsidized by a contractor or paid in full with the city.

The information submitted yesterday accuses Zuniga of participating in the money laundering conspiracy with Nuru by engaging in financial transactions with the proceeds of fraud, particularly wire fraud, with the intent to hide the nature and source of these funds while they became aware of the funds derived from illegal activities. Zuniga today signed a plea agreement with the court admitting the money laundering crime and expressing her intention to plead guilty to the crime.

In her plea agreement, Zuniga declares her readiness to cooperate with federal investigators in the ongoing federal investigations.

Zuniga’s admission of her own criminal behavior in her signed plea agreement, as well as a description of her circumstances and the people involved, was presented to the court in a separate “Appendix A” to the plea agreement. Appendix A is being filed under seal with the court and is currently not available for viewing. While the description of Appendix A is not public, the information filed publicly yesterday reveals more details. The money laundering conspiracy charged in today’s information is now said to have started years earlier than in the original complaint against Zuniga from June 2020. While this complaint alleged that the conspiracy began in March 2014, yesterday’s information alleged that the money laundering conspiracy was involved in a ” unknown date, but at least as early as 2010 “and continued until January 2020. Today’s information alleges that Zuniga conspired with Mohammed Nuru and other individuals known to the United States Attorney General in conducting and attempting to conduct financial transactions to launder the proceeds of wire fraud.

Zuniga is due to be tried tomorrow, Wednesday March 10th, over the information given by Judge Sallie Kim, United States Judge. Zuniga is expected to appear before US District Judge William H. Orrick in San Francisco on March 18, 2021. Zuniga remains out of custody.

Zuniga is charged with a money laundering conspiracy in violation of 18 USC § 1956 (h). The indictment provides for a maximum statutory sentence of 20 years in prison, a fine of $ 500,000, or double the value of the property involved in the transactions, or both. However, a post-conviction penalty would be imposed by the court only in accordance with US Sentencing Guidelines and Federal Act on the Imposition of a Penalty, 18 USC Section 3553.

A notice merely alleges that a crime has been committed and all the accused are presumed innocent until found guilty beyond any doubt.

Investigators are asking anyone with additional information that may be relevant to the investigation to email the FBI tip number at tips.fbi.gov or call the FBI at (415) 553-7400.

The prosecution is being carried out by the US Attorney’s Office, the new Corporate Fraud Strike Force in the Northern District of California, and is the result of an investigation by the FBI and the IRS-CI.

The post Former Director Of San Francisco Mayor’s Workplace Of Neighborhood Companies And San Francisco’s Repair-It Staff Agrees To Plead Responsible To Cash Laundering Conspiracy And To Cooperate With Federal Investigation | USAO-NDCA appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.