SAN FRANCISCO (CN) — Sandra Zuniga, the former director of the city of San Francisco’s Fix-It Team and the director of the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Services, was sentenced to three years of probation for her role in a sprawling corruption scandal involving members of City Hall.
Zuniga, 45, pleaded guilty in 2021 to one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, admitting she helped then-boyfriend Mohammed Nuru, the former director of the San Francisco Department of Public Works, launder more than $26,000 in bribes from people looking to do business with the department.
Nuru was sentenced to seven years in a federal prison in 2022 for his role in the corruption scandal.
Zuniga, appearing next to her attorney Galia Amram, told Senior U.S. District Judge William Orrick III that she was ashamed that her crimes could cause people to lose faith in public officials.
“My actions and my crime are completely against who I thought I was,” Zuniga said. “Completely unacceptable to me. And yet I was a part of it.”
Amram told Orrick that Zuniga was in a relationship with Nuru for over 10 years while he engaged in criminal conduct.
“Some of which she knew was not OK and some that she was not privy to,” Amram said.
Asking for leniency, Amram said that Zuniga did not personally benefit from the crime since she did not keep any money for herself, and that her conduct paled in comparison to others caught up in the City Hall corruption scandal.
“Her crime was not saying no to a man that she loved,” Amram said. She lost her home, her job, and any ability to work for the city of San Francisco again.
“You don’t need to punish her further. No one needs to punish her further,” Amram said.
Amram asked Orrick to give credit to Zuniga for time served, but he said that would not be appropriate considering the “seriousness of the crime.”
Orrick said he took several factors into account when he decided on probation for Zuniga — she was a minor part of the corruption scandal, had no criminal history and didn’t personally benefit from the crime, and she cooperated with investigators and admitted her wrongdoing.
“I’m confident I’m not gonna see you again,” Orrick said.
Prosecutor Brian Ward had recommended up to six months of home confinement along with 200 hours of community service for Zuniga.
“She was a public employee yet she facilitated this bribery and knew about this bribery for years. She should have known better.”
Nuru admitted to investigators that he bought a 10-acre lot in Colusa County in 2010 and developed it into his vacation ranch with free labor and materials provided by favor-seeking city contractors. Nuru also admitted using the money from his criminal activity to pay the mortgage of the ranch.
To conceal and launder the source of the money, Nuru said he funneled the money through Zuniga, who made monthly $1,000 mortgage payments on the ranch from her checking account.
In a three-year span between 2014 and 2017, Nuru said he typically gave Zuniga $1,000 per month, usually in cash, and she deposited the money into her bank account to make the mortgage payment. Along with $42,000 in mortgage payments, prosecutors said she made at least $135,000 in cash deposits from 2014-2020 through Nuru’s schemes.
Nuru also took Zuniga on lavish trips, including a two-week trip to South America in 2018 that included a stay at the Ritz-Carlton in Santiago, Chile, subsidized by a contractor that was doing business with the city.
Zuniga lost her jobs after the scheme came to light, and agreed to help the government in its San Francisco City Hall corruption investigation. She was banned from ever working for the city again; she appealed that decision but lost her appeal last month.
Because of her cooperation with the investigation, prosecutors did not seek prison time for Zuniga.
Zuniga is the latest to be sentenced in the corruption scandal. Bernie Curran, a former San Francisco building inspector, was sentenced to one year in prison for accepting payments in exchange for expediting building permits in July.
In a separate case, jurors found former Public Utilities Commission chief Harlan Kelly guilty of six of eight corruption related charges in July relating to a scheme Kelly hatched to defraud Quicken Loans, as well as bribes he received from billionaire Walter Wong.
In 2021, businesswoman Florence Kong admitted she gave Nuru $95,000 and a gold Rolex watch in exchange for his help obtaining business from the city. She was sentenced to one year in prison.
Subscribe to Closing Arguments
Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.
