Last week, Reynolds Rap deconstructed mayoral candidate Daniel Lurie’s negative campaign against contender Mark Farrell, and how Lurie’s own ties to City Hall dealings reduce his campaign’s “bombshell” to more of a damp squib. In part 2, we examine how the campaign ignores years of ongoing “pay-to-play” politics under previous administrations, which continue to get swept under the rug under incumbent mayor London Breed.
It started with ‘Shrimp Boy’
In 2015, former state senator Leland Yee pleaded guilty to a felony charge of using his short-lived campaign for California secretary of state as a “racketeering enterprise” to solicit funds from agents who posed as contributors. In his plea agreement, Yee said he conducted the affairs of the campaign “through a pattern of racketeering activity” that took place between October 2012 and March 2014 and netted him $34,600. In a plea agreement, Yee’s one-time consultant and fundraiser, Keith Jackson, a former San Francisco school board president, admitted to the same charge. In a separate racketeering charge, Jackson’s son Brandon and sports agent Marlon Sullivan also pleaded guilty.
All four had been scheduled to go on trial that August, in the first of several trials stemming from a five-year undercover investigation that led to a wide-ranging corruption indictment by a federal grand jury. Two dozen defendants were on trial, including Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow, a former gang leader in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Chow was accused of running an established Chinese American community organization, the Ghee Kung Tong, as a racketeering enterprise which Brandon Jackson and Sullivan admitted to taking part in, saying that others were involved in more nefarious activities such as drug dealing, robbery, extortion, illegal gun possession, and murder for hire.
Shrimp Boy’s defense team claimed that a Yee associate, businessman Derf Butler, also funneled “untraceable debit cards for clothing and trips in exchange for advantages on contracts in San Francisco” to a San Francisco city supervisor. Her name? London Breed.
Former Board of Supervisors president and current San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu, who was then a state assembly member, agreed to wear a wire for the FBI to record a conversation with Chow. The conflict between Chiu and Chow went back to Chiu pulling city funding for a Chinatown Night Market, after “he was made aware” that Chow had taken over managing it, due to Chow’s criminal ties. Chow took out an ad in a Chinese language paper saying that Chiu was like “a corpse eating a vegetable dinner,” which Chiu took as a threat, and therefore had a police detail with him at all times for six months. Chiu could rest easy after a federal jury convicted Chow in 2016 of running the organization as a racketeering enterprise and ordering the murder of its former leader, Allen Leung, in 2006. He was sentenced to life in prison. As for Breed, the feds were never able to catch her admitting to taking the debit cards.
Then-Mayor Ed Lee was accused of using officials in his administration, including the city’s former Human Rights Commissioner Zula Jones, to help solicit and launder bribes using straw donors. In 2012, phone calls caught Jones telling an undercover agent posing as a real estate developer, “You pay to play here. … We are the best at this game … better than New York.” Jones (no relation to Dwayne Jones, except through the City Family) discussed accepting $10,000 from the undercover agent to help Lee pay off his 2011 campaign debt in exchange for favorable treatment and breaking it into $500 checks to comply with San Francisco’s limits on individual contributions. “He’s not the type to have a debt,” Jones said in one call. “He’s not a real politician. He’s a bureaucrat. He’s a professional.” The calls also captured Jones bragging that Lee was a return to the old school ways of former Mayor Brown, who handpicked Gavin Newsom, Ed Lee, and London Breed to succeed him, keeping his tentacles around Room 200 and throughout San Francisco’s power structure. “We’re getting our ducks back in a row,” Jones said in another call. “For eight years, we’ve been sort of lost after Willie Brown left. But I told them this isn’t reinventing the wheel. It’s just getting it all back together.” Jones also boasted that she was trained in these ways by Brown, as was Lee. “Willie Brown was just the best mayor. … [H]e’d just let you loose,” Jones said. “I’m just excited that Ed Lee, who also worked under the Willie Brown administration, is the mayor and knows what to do.”
Jackson was sentenced to six months for each of the two City Hall charges and given credit while completing his federal term. Zula Jones took a plea agreement allowing her to avoid jail time. Lee, who was never charged with a crime, passed away on December 12, 2017, from a heart attack. He was just 65 years old.
London Breed’s deafening silence
Fast forward to 2019 when I wrote a Marina Times column titled, “It’s time for Mayor Breed to sweep DPW boss to the curb,” after following Mohammed Nuru’s Twitter feed under the handle MrCleanSF (again, you can’t make this stuff up). I noticed Nuru was touting the cleanliness of streets in China, Argentina, and Chile during trips taken in October 2018, snapping photos of himself beside landmarks, partying with high-ranking officials, and washing it all down with expensive bottles of wine. I immediately emailed SFDPW spokeswoman (and former San Francisco Chronicle City Hall reporter) Rachel Gordon. “I assume these were work related, so I would like to know the dates of the trips, how much the trips cost, and the reason for each trip,” I wrote. Gordon’s response was swift: “Hi Susan. These were not work-related trips. He was on a personal vacation, no government business nor funding involved.” After Gordon insisted those trips were “personal,” I decided to look into Nuru’s past, which I noted was “littered with two decades of ethical missteps, misappropriated taxpayer funds, lawsuits, and incompetence, courtesy of then-mayor Willie Brown,” who hired Nuru in 2000 as DPW’s deputy director of operations under director Ed Lee (yes, that Ed Lee).
After my first article, the silence from Breed was deafening.
In June 2019 I wrote another column following a tip I received about a romantic relationship between Breed and Nuru, and how, as mayor, Breed created a department and a job for Nuru’s current girlfriend Sandra Zuniga. How, I wondered aloud, was the public servant in charge of keeping San Francisco’s infamously feces-and-needle-strewn streets clean, able to embark on a nearly month-long “vacation” to three foreign countries? It turns out, the trips were financed by developers hoping to do business with the city. Nuru took “travel, hotel stays and lavish gifts” (like a $2,070 bottle of wine) and met repeatedly with a Chinese billionaire seeking to construct a large mixed-use building in San Francisco. Ten months later Nuru was arrested. Zuniga (who became “Girlfriend #1” in the FBI indictment) pleaded guilty in March 2021 to helping launder the proceeds of Nuru’s bribes and avoided prison time by cooperating with the investigation.
Again, crickets from Breed.
On Feb. 1, 2020, I once again wrote about Breed ignoring the rampant corruption and refusing to fire Nuru, perhaps because they had been romantically linked. Just two weeks later, on Valentine’s Day no less, Breed came clean (no pun intended) about Nuru in a Medium post, admitting they had indeed been romantically involved some 20 years ago (though my sources say it was much more recent). She also admitted to taking $5,600 in “gifts” from Nuru to fix an old car. Suddenly, every reporter in town was on it, many claiming they were long aware Breed and Nuru had dated. “It was an open secret at City Hall,” they said. But the public didn’t know, in effect allowing Breed to remain silent for years — and proving the level of coziness at City Hall extends to the press that covers it.
Shrimp Boy’s defense team claimed that a Yee associate funneled “untraceable debit cards for clothing and trips in exchange for advantages on contracts in San Francisco” to San Francisco City Supervisor London Breed.
In March of 2020, I wrote about Breed continuing to sweep the corruption of her top officials under the rug. I also disclosed the illicit affair between Harlan Kelly Jr. and his subordinate, Juliet Ellis. The pair took 44 trips together at a cost of more than $130,482 between April 2013 and December 2018, an average of eight trips together per year with an average annual price tag of nearly $24,000, billed to SFPUC ratepayers. On some of those trips, Kelly and Ellis brazenly (or foolishly) rented only one room, on others, adjoining rooms. There’s a trip to Cancun, a room service bill for tequila and Cheetos, and an apparent affinity for the most expensive hotels. In emails, the SFPUC financial department asks for justification on some of the pair’s requests for reimbursement, including why they continually choose the most expensive accommodations. Three months after my article, those travel records were subpoenaed by the FBI.
Again, nothing from Breed.
Of course, all roads lead back to Brown, who officiated the Kelly wedding. Mayor Lee then appointed both Harlan Kelly and Naomi Kelly to their executive roles (making nearly a million bucks a year combined), likely a thank you to Brown for supporting his bid to become mayor. After reading that article, a prominent restaurateur told me that Lee, Brown, and Newsom met regularly in a dark corner booth at his now-closed establishment to discuss the transfer of mayoral power to Lee. According to the restaurateur, Lee always looked “uncomfortable” next to the ever-slick Brown and Newsom.
In July 2020, I wrote an investigative report called “Friends with Community Benefits” about the blatant pay-to-play scheme at the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission disguised as a social impact program, where I made the connection between the Kellys and disgraced Department of Building Inspections expediter Walter Wong. “I have a feeling at some point the FBI will knock on the doors of Harlan Kelly, Juliet Ellis, Dwayne Jones … and others regarding the SFPUC Community Benefits Program, but Kelly may also be sweating the guilty pleas of Wong, which includes an agreement to cooperate with the FBI. It’s no secret that Wong did favors for a lot of city bigshots, and that apparently includes Harlan and Naomi Kelly,” I predicted.
Five months later, the Kelly house was raided by the FBI and Harlan was arrested. Not only did Breed remain silent, but she also doubled down, appointing City Attorney Dennis Herrera to replace Harlan Kelly as SFPUC general manager and David Chiu to replace Herrera as city attorney. Herrera, the proverbial fox in the henhouse, has also known about the corruption for decades. When he ran for mayor in 2011, he crowed, “For 10 years, Nuru’s questionable ethics and repeated misappropriation of taxpayer dollars didn’t seem to merit a slap on the wrist from Ed Lee. Now, as mayor, Ed Lee thinks it merits a promotion.” After Lee beat him and he went back to his job as city attorney, Herrera continued ignoring Nuru until the feds did his job for him nearly a decade later.
In an October 2021 column, I asked if Herrera was aware of Nuru, how could he not be aware of Kelly, Ellis, and Jones? According to sources within the community benefits program, Herrera was indeed aware: “He has an attorney sitting in on all meetings who reports back to him. The city attorney has to sign off on everything.” That same person confirmed, as I reported in July 2020, that Ellis did indeed decide which nonprofits would get money and that SFPUC contractor and close pal Dwayne Jones was her favorite middleman with joint venture board developers receiving big gigs. “Dwayne told them what nonprofit donations would help earn the best scores from Juliet,” the source explained. And, it turns out, those nonprofits were often connected to Jones. That article was mentioned in the August 2023 indictment that charged Jones with 59 counts of fraud. Nuru and Kelly are currently serving their sentences. Yet, as one fellow City Family member after another was arrested, indicted, or sent to prison, Breed never held so much as a press conference.
In my Gotham by the Bay November 2023 newsletter, I brought attention to a program called the Dream Keeper Initiative as ripe for grift and cronyism. One year later, it turns out not only did Breed and District 10 Supervisor Shamann Walton redirect $120 million from law enforcement for investments in the African American community, but the funds went to their cronies, who spent lavishly on the community — just kidding, they spent lavishly on themselves. Longtime Breed pal Sheryl Davis, head of the Human Rights Commission where she also ran the Dream Keeper Initiative, resigned on Friday Sept. 13, 2024, but just days before, on Sept. 11, Davis presided over the Dreaming Forward “fireside chat” and reception at the luxury five-star Riggs Hotel in Washington, D.C.
The event was hosted by the San Francisco Human Rights Commission, as was a seminar called “Dreaming Forward: Investing in Black Culture to Advance Academic Excellence,” featuring Davis and Dream Keeper Initiative director Dr. Saidah Leatutufu-Burch, a former employee of Walton’s who married another Walton employee, Percy Burch (she has also resigned). Davis and Burch also attended two events on Martha’s Vineyard in July and August this year where taxpayer money was spent on sponsorships to display their logo behind guests on the photo-op wall.
Taxpayers also covered a $10,000 house rental on Martha’s Vineyard for Breed’s Dream Keeper interns to stay during an African American leadership conference; a program for “over 200 Black Scholars;” loans on homes and condos; and helped fill the coffers of many undeserving and unqualified nonprofits like SF Black Wall Street, which spent $700,000 on two Juneteenth parties, eclipsing the $660,000 they spent on grants for Black small businesses. Tinisch Hollins, director of the entrepreneurship program, also redirected tens of thousands of dollars in administrative fees to a shell company she created. In 2023, SF Black Wall Street filed a 990EZ form with the IRS in 2021 with just over $115,000 in revenue and little to show for it (except a connection to Breed and Walton), yet they received nearly seven times that ($735,112) from Dream Keeper. Why? Because, as one critic of the program put it, “Mama Breed was on a mission to dole out $60 million to her friends.”
As Lurie and his team obsess over Farrell and spend millions of Lurie’s family fortune on a 24/7 assault “alleging corruption,” they have barely mentioned the gargantuan grift and cronyism that Breed and her fellow City Family members have perpetrated, been complicit in, or overlooked. Either Lurie truly believes Farrell is his only competition — meaning he doesn’t see Breed as a credible opponent — or he is simply not concerned with the blatant corruption that has plagued San Francisco for over a decade, turning a once great city into an international punching bag. Lurie adviser Max Szabo may think his vendetta against Farrell is pushing Lurie into the mayor’s seat, but the only candidate he’s really helping is Breed.
