Thread: S.F. topped border counties for border crime grant

S.F. topped border counties for crime grant

Jaxon Van Derbeken, Chronicle Staff Writer

Saturday, April 5, 2008

District Attorney Kamala Harris hasn't spoken publicly ab...

San Francisco's $3.7 million federal grant to help fight border crime in 2006 was the largest awarded to any county in four states bordering Mexico, according to a federal audit that found the city was not entitled to any of the funds.

City officials have not explained why a city 500 miles from the state's southern border would have prosecuted more than 2,000 cases for the federal government that were related to drug gangs and crimes near the border in a three-year period.

The audit, which was released this week and challenged all $5.4 million that the city received from 2004 to 2006, raises questions about the basis for the city's request for funding under the Southwest Border Prosecution Initiative.

Federal officials who challenged San Francisco's grants were told that the city simply made an "estimate" of the number of cases it handled on behalf of the federal government, the audit found. In a footnote, the audit quoted city officials as saying that the grant requests were not based on "actual cases."

Federal officials also suggested in the audit that San Francisco's apparently inflated grant requests robbed other jurisdictions of money that was supposed to help them fight drugs and crime on the federal government's behalf.

In the 2006 fiscal year, smaller amounts were awarded to compensate much larger counties close to the border, including San Diego, San Bernardino and Los Angeles counties, the audit found.

The offices of San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris and Mayor Gavin Newsom have not responded publicly to questions raised by the federal audit, saying only that they are cooperating with the investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice.

Federal authorities have declined to release detailed findings or correspondence associated with the audit, citing the ongoing nature of the case. Federal officials say they will ask San Francisco to repay the $5.4 million the city has received as part of the program, but they have not determined how to go about it.

The program, launched in 2000, is designed to help local jurisdictions pay for prosecuting cases they were saddled with as part of federal efforts to combat crime in states bordering Mexico.

The program requires applicants to keep three years of records on file to show that they were handling local prosecutions referred to them by federal prosecutors or agencies, a requirement that San Francisco did not comply with, according to the audit.

The audit also said the city increased its grant request from $40,000 in 2004 to $1.7 million the next year and $3.7 million in 2006. The city's grant was more than San Diego's $2.5 million, San Bernardino's $2.5 million or Los Angeles' $1.9 million under the program that fiscal year.

Alameda County received $10,000 that year, Contra Costa County $60,000, San Mateo County $86,000 and Santa Clara County $13,000, according to the audit.

The grant requirements indicate that the federal government need only receive an e-mail each quarter of the year that details how long the cases were taking to handle. The longer the case was in the system, the more the agency could seek, up to $10,000 for each case that languished longer than 90 days.

Erica Derryck, a spokeswoman for Harris, said the cases San Francisco cited in seeking grant money were legitimate.

"The cases submitted for reimbursement were actual prosecuted cases," she said. "What is in question is whether or not the prosecuted cases submitted were eligible for reimbursement under the federal program guidelines."

The program requires that for a county to get money to house and prosecute offenders, the agency must have some sort of referral from federal authorities and be handling them on behalf of the authorities.

After checking a sample of the lists and finding no referrals, the auditors concluded that all of the money San Francisco had taken in was not justified.

Kevin Ryan, who was the U.S. attorney in San Francisco in 2006, the year San Francisco asked for and got $3.7 million from the program, did not return calls seeking comment. He currently heads Newsom's Office of Criminal Justice.

Earlier this week, the city controller's office sent an e-mail to the Police Department's fiscal division seeking records of all arrests made between January 2003 and December 2006 by San Francisco officers participating in federal task forces. The office set a deadline of April 25 and asked that the information be forwarded to the district attorney's office.
San Francisco tops Southern California

In 2006, San Francisco received more money from a federal program to fight border crime than any of more than 60 counties in California and three other states that share borders with Mexico. The five California counties that received the most money were:

San Francisco

$3.7 million

San Diego

$2.5 million

San Bernardino

$2.5 million

Los Angeles

$1.9 million

Riverside

$1 million

Source: U.S. Office of Justice Programs

Chronicle staff writer Cecilia M. Vega contributed to this story. E-mail Jaxon Van Derbeken at jvanderbeken@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... 100953.DTL

San Francisco's $3.7 million federal grant to help fight border crime in 2006 was the largest awarded to any county in four states bordering Mexico, according to a federal audit that found the city was not entitled to any of the funds.

1. San Franciso is not on the U.S.-Mexico border
2. San Franciso violates federal immigration laws.
3. San Franciso is a sanctuary city.

Which congressman obtained this grant for San Franciso?
What San Franciso officials applied for this grant?
Shouldn't the officials be investigated for granting/obtaining money under false pretenses and fraud?

Federal funds come from all 50 states. I do not want my tax dollars spent on a sanctuary city. If San Franciso chooses to break the rule of law and support illegal aliens, then do it with its own money, not at federal tax-payers expense. Do the crime--on your own dime--not on mine.

"Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

California should get NOTHING!!! The stupid Governor wants illegals, he's got illegals, deal with it Arnold and SF.

Sorry to all the people who are against illegal's in their state but they need for things to evidently get REAL bad before they admit they are wrong and do something...

I thought it was real bad but...I'd like to know who gave it to CA?

did i miss something here?
i didnt know SF was in a county that was on the border.

whats wrong with this picture

Kevin James on KRLA is talking about this in the first hour on Mondays show

S.F. officials repeatedly delayed proving they were entitled to crime grant
Jaxon Van Derbeken, Chronicle Staff Writer

Tuesday, April 8, 2008
San Francisco repeatedly staved off federal auditors before finally admitting the city had no proof it was entitled to $5.4 million in grant money it got for helping federal authorities fight border crime, according to a U.S. Justice Department report released Tuesday.

The department said last week that it wanted San Francisco to repay the entire sum, which the city received under the grant program from 2004 to 2006. It said there was no evidence that any of the 2,241 prosecutions that San Francisco cited in its applications for the grant money had been referred to District Attorney Kamala Harris' office by federal authorities.

In the report released Tuesday, the Justice Department's inspector general in charge of the audit said the city had requested more time to produce documentation when federal officials approached them last July about justifying the prosecution money. The city finally turned over 152 criminal-case files for the auditors, who checked 71 and concluded that none qualified for money under the federal Southwest Border Prosecution Initiative. That program reimburses local jurisdictions for the cost of prosecuting border-related crimes, mostly involving drug trafficking.

Instead, the auditors reported, "San Francisco selected approximately 30 percent of its drug cases (for federal dollars)," based on the assumption that those cases could have been prosecuted under federal law but that the local U.S. attorney would not do so.

The audit also found that San Francisco billed the federal government twice for more than 10 percent of the 2,241 cases for which the city received money from Washington.

San Francisco's share of the federal program's money was considerable. The $3.7 million the city received in fiscal 2005-06 was more than any other county in the nation.

In a response to the audit, which the Justice Department finished in November, then-City Controller Ed Harrington argued that Harris did not need explicit permission from federal authorities to prosecute the cases in order to be repaid by Washington.

Harrington said the federal auditors had misinterpreted the guidelines of the program and that the city was assured by the Justice Department in 2003 that it was operating correctly. He did not provide documents to back up the assertion, however.

City officials have not said whether they will repay any of the $5.4 million. Harris said Monday that she had begun a review of the matter, expected to take two weeks, and that the city would "do the right thing."

On Tuesday, she said members of her staff believed there was a "legitimate difference of opinion" with the federal authorities but that they had not told her about it. The first she heard of the dispute was last week, she said.

"Now that I'm informed about the situation, I'm doing everything I can, as thoroughly as I can, to determine what happened and reach a resolution," Harris said.

The district attorney's applications for the federal money were prepared by Brad Burgess, a private consultant who worked for Public Resource Management Group in Roseville (Placer County). He declined to comment Tuesday, saying he would have to first consult with the city controller's office.

Harrington, who is now the head of the city's Public Utilities Commission, did not return calls.

In their report on San Francisco, auditors said that only criminal cases that federal officials handed off to local prosecutors qualified for repayment. The cases need not be formally reviewed by federal prosecutors, the auditors said - they could be ruled out under blanket standards used by U.S. attorney offices, as long as they came out of a federal investigation or arrest.

For example, crimes involving small quantities of drugs might not be enough to merit federal prosecution, but counties could be eligible for repayment if they decided to bring suspects to trial.

To verify San Francisco's applications, federal auditors sought to meet with city officials

Aug. 6. But a week before that, the officials said they needed another two weeks to obtain files from an "off-site storage facility," the audit said.

The city handed over 260 criminal-case files Aug. 20, then told auditors that those had been pulled by mistake and were not eligible for reimbursement, the Justice Department said.

The city handed over the revised collection of 152 criminal-case files four days later, but then "informed us the case files requested for review may not contain evidence that the cases were federally initiated," the audit said.

The Justice Department nonetheless went ahead with audit and found that the first 71 cases reviewed showed "no evidence of federal initiation."

San Francisco officials explained that they had misinterpreted the grant guidelines, the report said.

"According to San Francisco officials, the (grant) request were not based on actual cases. Instead, San Francisco selected approximately 30 percent of its drug cases" under the assumption that they qualified for funding but that federal prosecutors would never pursue them.

San Francisco officials told the auditors that they "did not consider the fact that the cases had to be initiated by a federal law enforcement agency or task force."

San Francisco had other problems, federal auditors found. Of the 2,241 cases that the city said were eligible for reimbursement, Harris' office double-billed the government for 283 of them, the report said. The cost to the federal government for those cases was $1.1 million, the audit said.

In his Nov. 2 response to the audit, Harrington said the district attorney hadn't pursued repayment based on a set formula of 30 percent of drug cases. Instead, the city did a "computer run" to screen cases "from the eligible population of potential candidates," Harrington said without elaborating.

He said the city consulted with the Justice Department in 2003 and "believed its submissions met program requirements." Harrington insisted that the government was now misinterpreting its own program and was insisting on impossible-to-meet documentation requirements.

"Four years later," Harrington said, "the report concludes that the interpretation of (the grant) guidelines shared by all parties was incorrect and applies a new, more demanding standard of proof for federal initiation."

Auditors countered that the standard had never changed and was not so burdensome that it could not be followed by other counties.

Harrington insisted the city was right in its belief that it could seek federal payment for prosecutions it handled on its own without a specific referral from a U.S. attorney. He added that the city hadn't documented federal referrals because it did not know it needed to.

E-mail Jaxon Van Derbeken at jvanderbeken@sfchronicle.com.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... 101UFG.DTL

S.F. officials repeatedly delayed proving they were entitled to crime grant
Jaxon Van Derbeken, Chronicle Staff Writer

Tuesday, April 8, 2008
San Francisco repeatedly staved off federal auditors before finally admitting the city had no proof it was entitled to $5.4 million in grant money it got for helping federal authorities fight border crime, according to a U.S. Justice Department report released Tuesday.

The department said last week that it wanted San Francisco to repay the entire sum, which the city received under the grant program from 2004 to 2006. It said there was no evidence that any of the 2,241 prosecutions that San Francisco cited in its applications for the grant money had been referred to District Attorney Kamala Harris' office by federal authorities.

In the report released Tuesday, the Justice Department's inspector general in charge of the audit said the city had requested more time to produce documentation when federal officials approached them last July about justifying the prosecution money. The city finally turned over 152 criminal-case files for the auditors, who checked 71 and concluded that none qualified for money under the federal Southwest Border Prosecution Initiative. That program reimburses local jurisdictions for the cost of prosecuting border-related crimes, mostly involving drug trafficking.

Instead, the auditors reported, "San Francisco selected approximately 30 percent of its drug cases (for federal dollars)," based on the assumption that those cases could have been prosecuted under federal law but that the local U.S. attorney would not do so.

The audit also found that San Francisco billed the federal government twice for more than 10 percent of the 2,241 cases for which the city received money from Washington.

San Francisco's share of the federal program's money was considerable. The $3.7 million the city received in fiscal 2005-06 was more than any other county in the nation.

In a response to the audit, which the Justice Department finished in November, then-City Controller Ed Harrington argued that Harris did not need explicit permission from federal authorities to prosecute the cases in order to be repaid by Washington.

Harrington said the federal auditors had misinterpreted the guidelines of the program and that the city was assured by the Justice Department in 2003 that it was operating correctly. He did not provide documents to back up the assertion, however.

City officials have not said whether they will repay any of the $5.4 million. Harris said Monday that she had begun a review of the matter, expected to take two weeks, and that the city would "do the right thing."

On Tuesday, she said members of her staff believed there was a "legitimate difference of opinion" with the federal authorities but that they had not told her about it. The first she heard of the dispute was last week, she said.

"Now that I'm informed about the situation, I'm doing everything I can, as thoroughly as I can, to determine what happened and reach a resolution," Harris said.

The district attorney's applications for the federal money were prepared by Brad Burgess, a private consultant who worked for Public Resource Management Group in Roseville (Placer County). He declined to comment Tuesday, saying he would have to first consult with the city controller's office.

Harrington, who is now the head of the city's Public Utilities Commission, did not return calls.

In their report on San Francisco, auditors said that only criminal cases that federal officials handed off to local prosecutors qualified for repayment. The cases need not be formally reviewed by federal prosecutors, the auditors said - they could be ruled out under blanket standards used by U.S. attorney offices, as long as they came out of a federal investigation or arrest.

For example, crimes involving small quantities of drugs might not be enough to merit federal prosecution, but counties could be eligible for repayment if they decided to bring suspects to trial.

To verify San Francisco's applications, federal auditors sought to meet with city officials

Aug. 6. But a week before that, the officials said they needed another two weeks to obtain files from an "off-site storage facility," the audit said.

The city handed over 260 criminal-case files Aug. 20, then told auditors that those had been pulled by mistake and were not eligible for reimbursement, the Justice Department said.

The city handed over the revised collection of 152 criminal-case files four days later, but then "informed us the case files requested for review may not contain evidence that the cases were federally initiated," the audit said.

The Justice Department nonetheless went ahead with audit and found that the first 71 cases reviewed showed "no evidence of federal initiation."

San Francisco officials explained that they had misinterpreted the grant guidelines, the report said.

"According to San Francisco officials, the (grant) request were not based on actual cases. Instead, San Francisco selected approximately 30 percent of its drug cases" under the assumption that they qualified for funding but that federal prosecutors would never pursue them.

San Francisco officials told the auditors that they "did not consider the fact that the cases had to be initiated by a federal law enforcement agency or task force."

San Francisco had other problems, federal auditors found. Of the 2,241 cases that the city said were eligible for reimbursement, Harris' office double-billed the government for 283 of them, the report said. The cost to the federal government for those cases was $1.1 million, the audit said.

In his Nov. 2 response to the audit, Harrington said the district attorney hadn't pursued repayment based on a set formula of 30 percent of drug cases. Instead, the city did a "computer run" to screen cases "from the eligible population of potential candidates," Harrington said without elaborating.

He said the city consulted with the Justice Department in 2003 and "believed its submissions met program requirements." Harrington insisted that the government was now misinterpreting its own program and was insisting on impossible-to-meet documentation requirements.

"Four years later," Harrington said, "the report concludes that the interpretation of (the grant) guidelines shared by all parties was incorrect and applies a new, more demanding standard of proof for federal initiation."

Auditors countered that the standard had never changed and was not so burdensome that it could not be followed by other counties.

Harrington insisted the city was right in its belief that it could seek federal payment for prosecutions it handled on its own without a specific referral from a U.S. attorney. He added that the city hadn't documented federal referrals because it did not know it needed to.

E-mail Jaxon Van Derbeken at jvanderbeken@sfchronicle.com.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... 101UFG.DTL