“We are pleased that Mr. Santos and Mr. Curran have been indicted on federal criminal charges. Our own investigations of these defendants have already been publicly disclosed.”
SAN FRANCISCO (Aug. 20, 2021) — City Attorney Dennis Herrera released the following statement after former Building Inspection Commission President Rodrigo Santos and former Senior Building Inspector Bernard Curran were indicted for building permit fraud:
“We are pleased that Mr. Santos and Mr. Curran have been indicted on federal criminal charges. Our own investigations of these defendants have already been publicly disclosed. We commend the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for now building a criminal case, a legal option that is not available to us. Our civil investigations are ongoing, and we will continue to root out corruption wherever we may find it. But we welcome the efforts of other law enforcement agencies, especially those with access to exclusive investigative tools, to hold bad actors fully accountable. At the end of the day, our goal remains the same: clean government.”
Case Background
The criminal cases against Santos come after a civil enforcement action by Herrera, who uncovered the scheme and alleged in an amended civil lawsuit unsealed in March 2020 that Santos was engaging in check fraud. In July 2021, Santos was indicted on federal criminal charges for check fraud.
The original civil lawsuit, which was filed in September 2018, uncovered an elaborate fraud scheme involving excavating under three San Francisco homes without permits. The civil case now alleges that Santos and his associates engaged in permit fraud regarding at least nine different properties in San Francisco.
The civil case is: City and County of San Francisco et al. v. Santos & Urrutia Associates Inc. et al., San Francisco Superior Court case number CGC-18-569923, filed Sept. 20, 2018. Additional information about from the case is available on the City Attorney’s website at: sfcityattorney.org.
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