A South San Francisco man was found guilty of car theft and burglary for stealing a van and a motorcycle in December 2020 and stealing catalytic converters and an exhaust pipe in 2021.

Cedric Anthony Sanders, 43, pleaded guilty to the two felonies Oct. 27 and had five prior car theft convictions, according to the San Mateo County District Attorney’s Office. He faces up to three years and eight months in state prison, with a sentencing date set for Dec. 6.

Sanders was stopped by Redwood City police officers on Dec. 25, 2020, when officers determined he was driving a Chevrolet van stolen three days earlier with a motorcycle that had been stolen several weeks earlier inside, the DA’s Office said.

On June 17, 2021, the police were called on Sanders after reports of him breaking and entering a Fair Oaks residential property garage with an unidentified woman, at which point used catalytic converters and an exhaust pipe were also found in his car, according to the DA’s Office.

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A 40-year-old woman has pleaded not guilty to felony vehicular manslaughter for allegedly causing a head-on crash that killed another driver in South San Francisco last week, prosecutors said Tuesday.

Cherise Nicole Shanta Wafer, an Antioch resident, is accused of causing the crash that killed 56-year-old Daly City resident Kham Ky Lam on Airport Boulevard early on the morning of Nov. 21, according to the San Mateo County District Attorney’s Office.

Prosecutors said Wafer has a history of mental illness and was speeding on the wrong side of the road and went through at least two intersections with traffic lights before the head-on collision occurred.

After the crash, Wafer allegedly walked into a nearby Denny’s restaurant and asked for a glass of water while not mentioning anything about the collision or asking police to be called. Officers eventually arrived and she allegedly gave multiple inconsistent and bizarre statements to them, prosecutors said.

She was arraigned Monday and entered the not guilty plea. She will return to court on Dec. 7 for a preliminary hearing and remains in custody on $50,000 bail.

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SAN FRANCISCO – Bernard Curran, a former San Francisco Senior Building Inspector, pleaded guilty today to two counts of accepting gratuity payments as rewards for approving building permits, announced United States Attorney Stephanie M. Hinds and Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agent in Charge Robert K. Tripp. 

Curran, 62, of San Francisco, was employed at the San Francisco Department of Building Inspection (DBI) from 2005 until he resigned from his supervisory position as Senior Building Inspector while on administrative leave in May 2021. Curran’s official duties included conducting physical inspections of buildings and construction sites in San Francisco. For a San Francisco property owner intending to shepherd a construction or remodeling project from inception to completion, the first hurdle is to obtain a permit from DBI. Once the permit is obtained and the work is underway, the next hurdle is to pass on-site physical inspections by DBI inspectors who determine whether the work completed complies with the work authorized by the permit. If a project passes all inspections and is deemed completed successfully, DBI inspectors “final” the permits and issue a certificate of final completion and occupancy (CFC), allowing the property to be used. 

In his plea agreement today, Curran admitted that he accepted illegal payments from two people in connection with his official duties. The first was a long time San Francisco real estate developer who Curran developed a friendship with in the 1990s. Over time, Curran inspected dozens of properties and projects connected to the developer. Curran admitted that during his DBI career, he received numerous financial benefits from the developer that he knew were improper. Upon Curran being promoted to Senior Building Inspector in 2009, he accepted cash payments as “rewards” from the developer in connection with final inspections and/or CFC issuances that Curran conducted at the developer’s properties. In one instance in March 2017, Curran accepted $260,000 from the developer to assist Curran in paying down his existing residential mortgage so he could obtain favorable refinancing rates. Though Curran intended to repay the money, he knew that accepting it was improper and created a forbidden conflict of interest. Moreover, though Curran paid most of the $260,000 back, he admitted the developer never required him to repay $30,000 of the outstanding balance. Curran understood that the $30,000 debt forgiveness was an improper reward for conducting past and future inspections at the developer’s building projects. 

The second person Curran admitted receiving illegal gratuities from was an engineer who worked with project owners and contractors seeking building permits in San Francisco. The engineer worked frequently with Curran and knew he was a volunteer coach and supporter of a San Francisco non-profit adult and youth athletic organization. Curran admitted in his plea agreement that the engineer arranged for the engineer’s clients to make charitable donations to the athletic organization as rewards for and in connection with inspections by Curran of the clients’ properties. The donations were typically made by check and several times were delivered directly to Curran, who in turn delivered the checks to the athletic organization. According to the plea agreement, in several instances the engineer advised Curran of a client’s donation while asking for a final permit or inspection on the client’s property. From May 2017 through April 2019 the athletic organization received 13 such checks from the engineer’s clients, totaling $9,600. Curran admitted that he took official action for each of the clients who wrote the 13 checks, knowing this conduct was not permitted.

Curran entered his guilty pleas before United States District Judge Susan Illston, who scheduled a sentencing hearing for Curran on March 31, 2023. Curran remains out of custody pending his sentencing hearing.

Curran pleaded guilty to two counts of accepting illegal gratuities in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 666(a)(1)(B). Each count carries a maximum statutory term of imprisonment of 10 years. However, any sentence following conviction imposed by the court will occur 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 Special Prosecutions Section of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California is prosecuting the case. The prosecution is the result of an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. 

This case is part of a larger federal investigation targeting public corruption in the City and County of San Francisco. To date, twelve individuals have been charged, including high-ranking San Francisco public officials Harlan Kelly and Mohammed Nuru. Nuru was sentenced to seven years in federal prison in August 2022. Multiple city contractors and facilitators have also been charged and several have been sentenced to prison. 
 

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With his federal corruption case over, a former San Francisco building inspector has reached a plea deal to resolve the charges brought against him by local prosecutors for allegedly taking payments from property owners whose projects he inspected.

Bernie Curran, 62, pleaded guilty Tuesday morning at the Hall of Justice to one count of felony perjury and one count of misdemeanor financial conflict of interest. The charges are in connection with a $180,000 loan that prosecutors said Curran accepted from developer Freydoon Ghassemzadeh in 2017, court records show.

Prosecutors said Curran committed perjury by failing to report the loan in his financial disclosure paperwork in 2018, and that he had a conflict of interest when he completed a final inspection for a property owned by Ghassemzadeh in Hayes Valley.

His attorney, Christopher Ulrich, said in court that Curran acknowledged the charge against him for felony perjury was “provable.”

Curran and his attorneys declined to comment on his guilty plea.

The District Attorney’s Office initially charged him in February 2022 with 11 perjury and conflict-of-interest charges related to payments that prosecutors said he took from various property owners whose properties he inspected.

The state case against Curran was an offshoot of a broader public corruption scandal that resulted in primarily federal charges against more than a dozen city officials, contractors and businesspeople, including ex-Department of Public Works head Mohammed Nuru.

The plea deal comes after Curran was sentenced to a year and a day in federal prison in July after pleading guilty to two counts of accepting illegal reward payments to settle the case against him brought by the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Bernie Curran leaves the federal courthouse after his sentencing on Friday July 14, 2023. | Source: Isaac Ceja/The Standard

The federal charges against him stemmed in part from Curran inspecting the properties of people who donated to his favored youth sports charity at the request of engineer Rodrigo Santos, who himself is set to serve two-and-a-half years in prison.

Curran was also charged with accepting a $260,000 loan from a prominent San Francisco developer whom federal prosecutors have not publicly identified and refer to only by the moniker “Developer-1.” Prosecutors said Curran received the money through a series of transactions meant to hide the source of the funds.

The Standard previously used court and other public records to report that Developer-1 may be Sia Tahbazof, a civil engineer and the brother-in-law of Ghassemzadeh. Prosecutors have hinted that Developer-1 may also face charges, pledging that he will “be held accountable for his role in this scheme.”

Neither federal or state prosecutors have announced charges against Tahbazof or Ghassemzadeh. Both men previously declined to comment when reached by The Standard. Ghassemzadeh did not return a phone call Tuesday.

Curran is due to return to court for sentencing Sept. 29 in his state case and is expected to serve time concurrently with his federal prison sentence.

He was ordered to surrender to federal authorities by Oct. 12.

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A Queens handyman has pleaded guilty to the killing of a 51-year-old mother who was found dismembered in a duffel bag earlier this year. On Wednesday, Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz announced that 44-year-old David Bonola pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the slaying of Orsolya Gaal. 

According to a statement from Katz, shortly after midnight on April 16, Bonola, a handyman who had previously worked at Gaal’s residence, went to her home, where she had just returned from a night out. The two got into an argument and he slashed her throat and proceeded to stab her more than 50 times, the statement said.

Katz did not elaborate on why Bonola had gone to the residence. At the time of Bonola’s arrest, NYPD Chief of Detectives James Essig said that he and Gaal had been in an “off-and-on” relationship for at least two years. The two allegedly reunited early in the month of April, but their relationship was considered at an end at the time of Gaal’s death, police said. 

At approximately 4:15 am, Bonola was captured on a neighbor’s surveillance camera wheeling a duffel bag. The bag was found in a nearby park about four hours later with Gaal’s dismembered body inside, prosecutors said. Police followed the trail of blood to Gaal’s home where they discovered the murder weapon, prosecutors said. Police also discovered Bonola’s jacket at the park where the duffel bag was found, according to prosecutors. 

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When Bonola spoke to police days later he made “incriminating statements” and revealed that he had gone to a local hospital to treat a cut on his hand, prosecutors said. Bonola also stated that he and Gaal had argued and confessed to stabbing and moving her body, prosecutors said. 

“This heinous killing devastated an entire family, left two boys without a mother, and horrified the surrounding community,” Katz said in a statement. “I want to thank my prosecutors for their exhaustive efforts in securing this plea.”

“In pleading guilty, the defendant has accepted responsibility and is being held fully accountable for his criminal actions,” Katz added. “We express our sincerest condolences to the victim’s family and hope that today’s plea will allow them to begin to heal.”

Bonola is set to be sentenced to 25 years in prison followed by five years post-release supervision on November 16, prosecutors said. 

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JANIE HAR, Associated Press

3 hours ago

Nima Momeni, charged with murder in the murder of Cash App founder Bob Lee, enters the courtroom at the Hall of Justice in San Francisco on Thursday, May 18, 2023. (Paul Kuroda/ The Standard via AP, Pool)

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – Technology consultant Nima Momeni on Thursday pleaded not guilty to a murder charge in the stabbing death of Cash App founder Bob Lee on the streets of San Francisco.

San Francisco Superior Court Justice Victor Hwang ordered 38-year-old Momeni to remain in prison without bail because he posed a risk to public safety if released. Momeni, who appeared in an orange sweatshirt and trousers, said nothing and his attorney Paula Canny filed the plea on his behalf.

The case has garnered national attention, in part due to Lee’s status in the tech world. Lee was found shortly after 2:30 a.m. on April 4 with three stab wounds, including one to the heart, and was taken to a hospital, where he later died. He was found in the Rincon Hill neighborhood of downtown San Francisco, which has tech offices and condos but is quiet early in the morning.

Lee, 43, founded Cash App, a mobile payments service, and was chief product officer of cryptocurrency MobileCoin. He was mourned as a loving father of two who made friends everywhere.

Prosecutors have not revealed a motive but say Momeni stabbed Lee after an argument broke out over Momeni’s sister, who appeared in court with her mother on Thursday.

Deputy District Attorney Omid Talai on Thursday pleaded for Momeni to be held without bail, saying the defendant drove Lee to a remote location and used a knife that was part of a unique kitchen set owned by his sister. Police found a knife with a four-inch blade at the scene.

Talai said the analysis showed Momeni’s DNA on the knife’s handle and Lee’s DNA on the bloodied blade and no evidence that Lee touched the handle, contradicting Canny’s claim of self-defense for her client.

But Canny said that Momeni didn’t drive Lee to a secluded place to kill him. Instead, she said, Lee ordered him to stop after calling an Uber about the two getting into an argument. The last time Momeni saw Lee, Canny said, Lee stood up and walked away.

“People can argue without knowing that someone has been mortally wounded,” she said in court, later adding, “All of us, including my client, are heartbroken that Bob Lee has died.”

Canny said Momeni has close ties to the community and must stay and fight the charges or face deportation to Iran, which would separate him from the two people he loves most, his mother and sister. Momeni is not a US citizen.

Outside the courtroom, Canny described the encounter as “a mixture of self-defense and accident.” There was no premeditated advice.”

San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins dismissed the idea when speaking to reporters after the indictment. “We believe we have Mr. Lee’s killer, and that is Mr. Momeni,” she said.

Nima Momeni was 14 years old when his mother took the children to the United States. She fled Iran and had a husband who had been abusive and violent to the family for years, his mother wrote in a letter presented to the court in support of her son’s release in court.

She said her son was generous, kind, and contributed financially when she enrolled in college to train as a dental hygienist. He taught himself computer technology.

Momeni was arrested last month at his home in Emeryville, across the street from San Francisco.

An unnamed friend of Lee told homicide detectives they had been hanging out and drinking with Momeni’s sister the day before the stabbing, prosecutors said in a motion to hold Momeni without bail.

The friend said Momeni later asked Lee if his sister was using drugs or otherwise behaving inappropriately, and Lee said she wasn’t.

The girlfriend and Lee later parted ways, and surveillance video showed Lee entering the ritzy Millennium Tower downtown, where Momeni’s sister Khazar lives with her husband, renowned San Francisco plastic surgeon Dino Elyassnia. Video footage then showed Lee and Momeni exiting the building together just after 2 a.m. and driving away in Momeni’s car.

If convicted, Momeni faces 26 years in prison.

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A handyman accused of killing a Jensen Beach woman and then hiding her body in a septic tank has pleaded guilty to murder and will spend the rest of his life in prison.

Keoki Demich, 34, was sentenced to three consecutive life terms Tuesday for the murder of Cynthia Cole earlier this year.

By pleading guilty, prosecutors agreed to waive their notice to seek the death penalty.

Demich will serve three life sentences for first-degree murder, burglary of an occupied dwelling with assault or battery and sexual battery. He was also convicted of third-degree grand theft and grand theft of a motor vehicle.

Cole’s body was found March 5 submerged in the septic tank — about 4 feet underground — after hours of excavation.

The 57-year-old woman had been missing for more than a week after attending the Jammin’ Jensen event in downtown Jensen Beach.

Demich was a longtime handyman for Cole.

According to court documents, Demich hid inside Cole’s shower while waiting for her to return home.

Records show he attacked her, drowned her inside her bathtub and then proceeded to sexually abuse her before burying her inside the septic tank.

Sheriff William Snyder said investigators secured surveillance video that showed Demich walking away from Cole’s car on the night she disappeared.

The sheriff said Cole and Demich had known each other for years.

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A Queens handyman has pleaded guilty to the killing of a 51-year-old mother who was found dismembered in a duffel bag earlier this year. On Wednesday, Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz announced that 44-year-old David Bonola pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the slaying of Orsolya Gaal.

According to a statement from Katz, shortly after midnight on April 16, Bonola, a handyman who had previously worked at Gaal’s residence, went to her home, where she had just returned from a night out. The two got into an argument and he slashed her throat and proceeded to stab her more than 50 times, the statement said.

Katz did not elaborate on why Bonola had gone to the residence. At the time of Bonola’s arrest, NYPD Chief of Detectives James Essig said that he and Gaal had been in an “off-and-on” relationship for at least two years. The two allegedly reunited early in the month of April, but their relationship was considered at an end at the time of Gaal’s death, the police said.

At approximately 4:15 am, Bonola was captured on a neighbor’s surveillance camera wheeling a duffel bag. The bag was found in a nearby park about four hours later with Gaal’s dismembered body inside, prosecutors said. Police followed the trail of blood to Gaal’s home where they discovered the murder weapon, prosecutors said. Police also discovered Bonola’s jacket at the park where the duffel bag was found, according to prosecutors.

When Bonola spoke to police days later he made “incriminating statements” and revealed that he had gone to a local hospital to treat a cut on his hand, prosecutors said. Bonola also stated that he and Gaal had argued and confessed to stabbing and moving her body, prosecutors said.

“This heinous killing devastated an entire family, left two boys without a mother, and horrified the surrounding community,” Katz said in a statement. “I want to thank my prosecutors for their exhaustive efforts in securing this plea.”

“In pleading guilty, the defendant has accepted responsibility and is being held fully accountable for his criminal actions,” Katz added. “We express our sincerest condolences to the victim’s family and hope that today’s plea will allow them to begin to heal.”

Bonola is set to be sentenced to 25 years in prison followed by five years post-release supervision on November 16, prosecutors said.

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A Queens handyman has pleaded guilty to the killing of a 51-year-old mother who was found dismembered in a duffel bag earlier this year. On Wednesday, Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz announced that 44-year-old David Bonola pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the slaying of Orsolya Gaal.

According to a statement from Katz, shortly after midnight on April 16, Bonola, a handyman who had previously worked at Gaal’s residence, went to her home, where she had just returned from a night out. The two got into an argument and he slashed her throat and proceeded to stab her more than 50 times, the statement said.

Katz did not elaborate on why Bonola had gone to the residence. At the time of Bonola’s arrest, NYPD Chief of Detectives James Essig said that he and Gaal had been in an “off-and-on” relationship for at least two years. The two allegedly reunited early in the month of April, but their relationship was considered at an end at the time of Gaal’s death, the police said.

At approximately 4:15 am, Bonola was captured on a neighbor’s surveillance camera wheeling a duffel bag. The bag was found in a nearby park about four hours later with Gaal’s dismembered body inside, prosecutors said. Police followed the trail of blood to Gaal’s home where they discovered the murder weapon, prosecutors said. Police also discovered Bonola’s jacket at the park where the duffel bag was found, according to prosecutors.

When Bonola spoke to police days later he made “incriminating statements” and revealed that he had gone to a local hospital to treat a cut on his hand, prosecutors said. Bonola also stated that he and Gaal had argued and confessed to stabbing and moving her body, prosecutors said.

“This heinous killing devastated an entire family, left two boys without a mother, and horrified the surrounding community,” Katz said in a statement. “I want to thank my prosecutors for their exhaustive efforts in securing this plea.”

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“In pleading guilty, the defendant has accepted responsibility and is being held fully accountable for his criminal actions,” Katz added. “We express our sincerest condolences to the victim’s family and hope that today’s plea will allow them to begin to heal.”

Bonola is set to be sentenced to 25 years in prison followed by five years post-release supervision on November 16, prosecutors said.

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A former handyman has pleaded guilty to third-degree murder in the death of a western Pennsylvania woman whose body was found nearly a year after she went missing in 2019. Douglas Berry, 50, of McKeesport, also pleaded guilty to burglary, theft and receiving stolen property Monday as part of an agreement with Allegheny County prosecutors who agreed to recommend a sentence of 17 to 40 years in state prison.

Elizabeth Wiesenfeld, 67, was reported missing to Whitehall police in April 2019. Remains later identified as hers were found nearly a year later in a garbage bag in a section of Plum Borough known for illegal dumping and off-road vehicle use.

Authorities said Wiesenfeld had told her family she was afraid of Berry, who had been doing work on her house and kept showing up even though she had stopped hiring him.

Berry told the court that he wanted everyone to know “how sorry I am for the mistakes I’ve made,” the Tribune-Review reported.

Douglas Berry

“I’ve learned to pray for forgiveness,” he said. “I apologize to the family for not doing more, and I apologize to Betsy. I can’t move mountains.”

Police said they linked Berry to the case through Wiesenfeld’s stolen ATM card, CBS Pittsburgh reports.

Since her death, Wiesenfeld’s first grandson has been born and her first granddaughter is set to arrive soon. Her brother, Christopher Lagi, said in a victim impact statement that “she died on the verge of a great outpouring of love.”

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