How the DOJ Encouraged Chief Scott to Work with Nefarious SF Nonprofits
I don’t know if it was growing up as a city kid, or my courses in accounting that instilled the need to apply professional skepticism[i] to evidence that has been presented. SFPD Chief William Scott, was also an accounting major, but he doesn’t seem to have retained even a minimal level of doubt.
US DOJ Assessment of SFPD
In October 2016, before Scott was named chief, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) published their completed assessment of SFPD. In their assessment, the DOJ dictated 272 recommendations for SFPD to implement. Like a student that recites a teacher’s falsehoods rather than challenging them, Scott has recently been bragging that he completed all 272 recommendations. Congratulations Chief, you get an A+ in comportment, while every day the school bullies were stealing your reputation’s lunchbox.
Contrastingly, I was skeptical of the DOJ’s results. In November 2017, I published an article in the Westside Observer questioning how the DOJ:
· Justified using the demographics they arrived at by assembling the race of people involved in traffic accidents on Highway 101, rather than based on the US Census.
· Concluded that SFPD officers were racially biased despite determining SFPD was 64% more likely to issue citations to Caucasians over people of color (page 74).
· At the time of the DOJ report, females composed 15.3% of SFPD’s force, and enjoyed greater upward mobility documented by the fact they made up greater than 15.3% at every rank except for captain (14.3%). Despite the inverse underrepresentation of males getting promoted, SFPD was portrayed as being unfair to women because of the deficiency in a single rank.
It was obvious that the DOJ selected the statistics that supported their agenda, and intentionally overlooked those that diminished their cause. Last week, the same DOJ published the same de-policing talking pointsagainst the Phoenix Police Department. Residents of Phoenix, good luck.
Recommendation 43.1, evidence of the DOJ’s disconnect
Through the lens of 20/20 hindsight, let’s review the four nonprofits (in chronological order) that the DOJ directed SFPD “should continue to actively support.” And where Chief Scott failed to apply the professional skepticism, he was taught during his college accounting curriculum.
1) San Francisco Police Activities League (PAL)
SFPD claims: “The San Francisco PAL is an independent nonprofit that receives no funding from the City of San Francisco or the San Francisco Police Department.” That being said, taxpayers pay for SFPD to assign officers to work at the PAL office. Also, per the most recent PAL tax return, half of the PAL’s board of directors are current or former members of SFPD.
The financial breaches that occurred at the PAL preceded Scott’s tenure, but existed when the DOJ conducted their extensive (LOL) analysis. The DOJ simply overlooked these serious problems.
In 2013, the PAL’s tax return was signed by Benjamin Tan on behalf of SFPD Commander Mike Biel (see below).
Before Tan signed the tax return, in 2013 he pled guilty to felonies for stealing from a South Bay nonprofit’s 401k plan. This information was easily accessible through an internet search here and here. This raises two questions:
1) What was SFPD and the PAL doing associating with and trusting a convicted felon?
2) Does SFPD not have access to Google Search?
The tax returns of nonprofits are published on the internet. I found it curious that when the ending PAL cash balance was counted on December 31, 2014 at 11:59pm, and it was different than the beginning balance two-minutes later at 00:01 am on January 1, 2015. In fact, as I documented in a February 2018 article, every PAL ending 2014 balance sheet item was different than the beginning 2015 account balance.
Subsequent to my 2018 article, the 2014 PAL tax return was amended (see checkmark on left side below) to correct the financial anomalies/missing funds that I exposed.
2) The Garden Project
In 1992, Cathrine Sneed, a full time employee with the Sheriff’s Department cofounded the Garden Project, “a project that empowers former offenders and at-risk youth through training and education urban gardening.” Sneed described, “There is a lot of environmental work and repair that needs to be done. Work that people could do instead of sitting in jail and going to jail.”
Per the Garden Project website, they were partnered with the San Francisco Sheriff’s Department and SFPD:
Per the Mission Local, the PUC contributed $1.6 million of taxpayer dollars and the Sheriff’s Department committed $400,000 of taxpayer funds to the Garden Project. In 2018, “fiscal irregularities” were uncovered.
Per El Tecolote, “Mayor Farrell, Sheriff Vicky Hennessy and SFPUC [San Francisco Public Utilities Commission] General Manager Harlan Kelley Jr. did not act to restore funding. After nearly 30 years, the project ended on June 31, 2018.[ii]” Consistent with the allegations against Sneed, public records show she immediately retired--probably to preserve her city pension.
Consider: Harlan Kelley, who was recently sentenced to prison after a federal investigation into SF government corruption, voted to terminate taxpayer dollars going to Sneed? Wow, what an endorsement. That ensures Sneed will be a first-ballot inductee into the San Francisco Corruption Hall of Fame.
It is unknown what SFPD’s economic involvement was with the Garden Project, if any. Will Scott became police chief in January 2017, so much of the roots of fraud preceded him. However, the Garden Project’s alleged fraud was going full strength when the wizards at the DOJ were recommending SFPD should get cozier with the nonprofit. Government incompetency?
1) SF Safe
Like swindler Benjamin Tan surfing from one nonprofit to another until he ended up in bed with SFPD, Kyra Worthy had a similar résumé. Worthy was involved with a nonprofit that serviced the West Contra Costa School District. Per the SF Standard, the school district accused Worthy of submitting false invoices and in September 2017, the district asked Worthy to return $235,000.
What could Worthy do? Just a few months later, with Scott now Chief of SFPD, she signed on as executive director of SF Safe, a “nonprofit partner with SFPD.” San Francisco angel investor, Chris Larsen, donated $1.8 million to SF Safe. Larsen told the SF Standard, “From what I understand, the selection process was done well, and from what I understand, she was vetted through the police department (SFPD).”
Per the SF Standard, in January of this year, Worthy was accused of stiffing contractors of $1.2 million, depleting bank accounts, possibly issuing fraudulent checks, and improperly billing SFPD for luxury gift boxes.
It appears that besides Larsen getting taken, over a million dollars of taxpayers’ dollars were also annually laundered through SFPD to SF Safe.
Just more evidence the DOJ was so focused on chasing the tail of their racism narrative, that they overlooked the dog of corruption staring them in the face. This fraud thrived 100% during Chief Scott’s tenure because he failed to apply professional skepticism.
2) Coffee With a Cop
Coffee with a Cop appears to be a dormant program. SFPD never set up a dedicated 501c3 nonprofit. The SFPD website shows no specific coffee events scheduled. And SFPD’s webpage links the history of their program to a nonprofit initiated by Hawthorne Police Department’s (Los Angeles) website. SFPD should take the webpage down, it’s stale.
3) Operation Genesis
DOJ did not recommend that SFPD should engage with the nonprofit, Operation Genesis. In SFPD Bulletin 19-028, SFPD describes Officer Jason Johnson, on March 21, 2019, escorting 9 high school students to Accra, Ghana to learn about the history of their ancestors and to “meet local youth and learn about the differences between life in Africa and the United States.” At the time of the SFPD bulletin, Scott had two years under his belt as chief.
As the SF Standard pointed out, “None of this would be unusual if it were not for the fact that Johnson worked a full-time schedule for the nonprofit while also working full-time as a San Francisco police officer. The department has seen no conflict between Johnson’s two worlds, as it paid him a city salary to run Operation Genesis and plan trips to Ghana.”
The Standard went on, “The department says the work it paid Johnson to do was above board because he was not paid by his charity. ‘There is no evidence to suggest Officer Johnson was compensated by Operation Genesis’ said department spokesperson Evan Sernoffsky.” But Evan, did SFPD even look for evidence of malfeasance?
1) The only way SFPD could ensure that Officer Johnson was not double-dipping was if a formal audit was conducted on Operation Genesis. This would most likely require a court order to see the books. SFPD simply does not have the capacity to audit the nonprofit. Plus, an audit would have only further embarrassed SFPD and Chief Scott.
2) Operation Genesis’ 2022 tax return (below) shows approximately $750,000 of SF taxpayers’ funds exited the nonprofit in the form of salaries (see below).
o Are we really supposed to believe that while Officer Johnson was the president of Operation Genesis, $750,000 was paid in salaries, and he didn’t collect a penny, while SFPD was simultaneously paying him a salary? (Evan, here’s the probability of that: .000001%.)
o Then who did receive the compensation from this dinky nonprofit?
o Which “officers, directors, trustees, or key employees” received the $94,169 specified as executive compensation? As president, wasn’t JJ an “executive?”
o SFPD is starving for officers on the street, yet Scott detailed an officer to take kids to Africa on city-time and the taxpayers’ dime? Sources are telling me that because Officer Johnson spent no time working as a patrol officer, no body cam footage of him on the streets even exists.
Recommendation 92.1, DOJ commands SFPD officers must drink the Kool-Aid
President Biden’s, President Trump’s, or President’s Obama’s views on policing are opinions—they are opinions only, based on their personal perceptions. It’s fine for presidents to try to persuade the public to accept their positions. Yet should blind acceptance of President Obama’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing be the condition for an SFPD officer’s promotion? The Audacity of Narrow-Mindedness.
But if Chief Scott implemented all of the DOJ’s 272 recommendations, then SFPD officers were forced to regurgitate the DOJ’s incompetency and accept SFPD’s engagement with fraudulent nonprofits, or not get promoted. Way to keep the smarter officers subordinated to the yes-people.
The two recurring problems with SFPD and SF.gov
Not questioning the Emperor’s new clothes is one of two underlying problems with both SFPD and city government. Unlike the private sector, where people are promoted based on their production, in the public sector, mediocracy prevails. Officers with measurable and government-certified technical skills are supplanted by “yes people,” amateurs who won’t improve the organization because they’re afraid to challenge the status quo. Under Chief Scott, a college music major and public affairs major acted as SFPD’s chief financial officer, at double the salary of three SFPD officers with CPA licenses that were assigned to the streets. Chief Scott, perhaps the remaining CPA/officers could audit Operation Genesis.
The second problem is there are no consequences to the Benjamin Tan’s, Cathrine Sneed’s, and Kyra Worthy’s that steal from SF taxpayers, or for SF Police Commissioner Jesus Yanez who harbored a violent felon. Unless there is an independent FBI investigation, the-we’re-going-to-slow-walk-this-investigation always melts into wrist-slaps for the greedy “members of the city family.”
Rinse and repeat.
[i] Public Accounting Standards Oversight Board Section 1015 subsections .07-.08. “Professional skepticism is an attitude that includes a questioning mind and a critical assessment of audit evidence. .
[ii] Not at typo on date, I cut-and-pasted that sentence.
Always on target Lou! Great investigation and article!