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Investigation into Allegations of Organized Fraud
in the June 1997 Stadium Bond Election in San Francisco

Exclusive Internet report

Review the evidence and
decide for yourself

This website has been on the case since June 5, 1997

If you are a witness or if you would like
regular updates on the case write to us

Brief Summary of the San Francisco case

Web Site Overview

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dolores Evans, polling place supervisor and an active and generous member of the Bayview-Hunters Point community, who died in a suspicious fire – along with five children – just days before she was to have been interviewed by a private investigator about this case.

In a highly uncharacteristic act, Mayor Willie Brown personally visited Evans’ public housing apartment the day after the fire pointing out flaws in the building’s construction to news cameras. The Fire department ruled out foul play – before they had completed their investigation.

Bystanders say that help was slow in coming. “A man whose name was not released by authorities but was identified by neighbors as Henry Redmond was reportedly seen calmly leaving the apartment at 132 West Point Road minutes before it ignited.” “None of the victims were able to escape the apartment even though their access to the fire escape was unobstructed.”

The final police version of events as reported by the Examiner makes little sense. Redmond’s claim that he sought help was contradicted by numerous eyewitnesses. Evans’ role as the polling place supervisor of the most suspect precinct in the most suspect election in recent San Francisco history was never reported by the local media.

Over 15,000 San Francisco voters have signed the petition calling for a new election in the face of a total news media blackout

Here’s what the local media refers to
as a “thorough investigation”

  • The city’s two “newspapers,” the Chronicle and the Examiner published headlines declaring there was “no fraud” just days after the election before the matter had even been investigated.
  • California Secretary of State Bill Jones issued a report debunking fraud allegations that had been drafted in part by the City Attorney of San Francisco Louise Renne at the same time she was defending the mayor against a lawsuit alleging fraud in the stadium election.
  • The San Francisco District Attorney, an ardent supporter of the stadium deal, chose to give the “Yes of D & F” precinct captain who was caught voting twice under an assumed name (a felony), a slap on the wrist.
  • The San Francisco judge who refused to hear a civil lawsuit against the city on the allegations then ordered the Department of Elections to reject a petition signed by over 15,000 citizens seeking to hold a referendum to overturn the results of the stadium election.

Learn how the local San Francisco news media has participated in suppressing information about this story. Less than 1% of what appears on this site has been reported to the public.

The Latest

  • In a letter dated May 17, 2001, then Acting Director of the San Francisco Department of Elections, Dr. Phillip Sanches-Paris alleged, in the words of the San Francisco Chronicle, “a series of misdeeds and potentially criminal acts in the city’s Department of Elections.” The letter was addressed to City Attorney Louise Renne and was entitled “Re: Second Request for Outside Counsel due to City Attorney’s Conflict of Interest”

The City Attorney responded by investigating Dr. Sanches-Paris. The local press acted confused and specifically did not publish the text of his allegations though the letter appeared on numerous websites including this one. The mainstream press account: Effect of lost S.F. ballots on last November’s election downplayed – Business as usual in Scam Francisco.

  • ‘Investigators’ hired by City Attorney Louise Renne have declared that Dr. Paris’ assertions do not merit further investigation.
  • As a result of threats made by Dale Minami of the law firm of Minami, Lew & Tamaki on behalf of Christiane Hayashi and Jennifer Novak, the original text of the Sanches-Paris letter – a letter from a public official to a public official about a matter of public interest – has been removed from this web site. In the absence of anyone stepping forward to assist in defending against these threats, the Trustees of the First Amendment Defense Trust have regretfully decided to remove the letter so that we can use our limited resources to continue reporting news that ‘mainstream’ news outlets will not.

We agree with many election fraud investigators, including University of Virginia Professor Larry J. Sabato (author of “The Persistence of Corruption in American Politics”), who have stated that it is institutionalized incompetence and mismanagement that makes election fraud possible and so widespread in the United States.

  • May 18, 2001 – Ronnie Davis, Willie Brown’s pal and operator of Sercret public housing polling places, is in hot water again. This time federal auditors say $18,000,000 in public funds he had control of as head of San Francisco public housing cannot be accounted for

Full text of the indictment

  • March 23, 2001 – Ronnie Davis, who opened secret polling places with HUD money on behalf of the 49er stadium campaign, was indicted for theft and fraud by an Ohio Grand Jury. Davis is a close friend and ally of San Francisco mayor Willie Brown.

This is the second major player in the election fraud story to be indicted on serious corruption charges, the first being Eddie DeBartolo who bankrolled the campaign. Details on the Ronnie Davis indictment. Note: The last San Francisco Public Housing official to receive attention like this was Jim Jones of Jonestown infamy, who coincidentally (or not) was implicated in an election fraud scheme that benefited Willie Brown.

  • November 2, 1999 – The official response to election fraud in San Francisco as quoted in today’s Wall Street Journal:

“Despite worries about the possibility of voter fraud in San Francisco elections, city officials can do little more than hope for the best when it comes to protecting the ballot box.”

This statement, which appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, sums up the situation perfectly. In the total absence of enforcement of election laws by the SFPD, DA Terrence Hallinan, Secretary of State Bill Jones, and the San Francisco judiciary, “hope” is the only thing protecting San Francisco’s ballot boxes. The problem is clear. The only question now is what are San Franciscans going to do about it.

  • October 25, 1999 – Your pre-season guide to this year’s election fraud, provided, remarkably enough, by the San Francisco Chronicle.

Get ready for a strong sense of deja vu: fraudulent registrations organized by Brown allies; DA Hallinan sits on the evidence; Secretary of State Bill Jones feigns concern, does nothing. Both papers do their best to not discuss the fraud in the 1997 stadium election or the long history of election fraud in the city. Information about ongoing citizen efforts to prevent election fraud in San Francisco, including poll watching in this election, is, characteristically, not provided.

* October 18, 1999 – The Bay View/Hunter’s Point Pay Off: Here’s what turned up recently in the Examiner – like everything else in San Francisco “journalism”, a day late and a dollar short. Or in this case, two and a half years after even the greenest reporter could have dug it out of the public record:

“Walker led voter-turnout efforts in Hunters Point for the mayor’s 49ers football stadium initiative, which was narrowly approved in 1997.”

Three days after the vote, on June 6, 1997, Brown told Redevelopment Director Jim Morales to give $100,000 to the (Walker’s) Third Street firm, city documents show…”

“Mayor Willie Brown’s office can’t seem to get mayoral friend Charlie Walker to show that a corporation he founded was legally entitled to receive a $100,000 city grant…” – Examiner story

  • October 15, 1999 – Nearly ten years after he arrived in San Francisco to babysit Edward DeBartolo’s son, the felon Eddie Jr., and one year after he left town, the San Francisco news media finally discovers the pre-49er career of Carmen Policy: top mob lawyer between New York and Chicago.

“… he certainly defended the best-known Mafioso, at a time when the mobsters were bombing and shooting each other to death with unprecedented regularity.” – SF Weekly Story

“Policy” is mob slang for numbers, a form of illegal betting, not an Italian surname. It would be interesting to trace how Policy got his name.

  • October 27, 1998 –Twenty-two years of citizen protest against election fraud in San Francisco.
  • October 24, 1998 – A petition with the signatures of 15,000+ San Francisco voters calling for a new stadium vote is presented to the Elections Department (only 10,500 signatures are required to put it on the ballot.) Naomi Nishioka, acting director of the Department of Elections, says she will ignore the petition.
  • October 7, 1998, DeBartolo pleaded guilty to a felony in a Louisiana bribery and political corruption case. Official San Francisco expresses its sympathy for the “ordeal” he suffered.
  • August 19, 1998 – The San Franciso Weekly becomes the first locally published paper to report on the connections between TURF founder Thomas Mayfield, and Willie Brown, and the employment of drug dealers by the San Francisco Housing Authority more than one year after this website raised the question.
  • August 12, 1998 – The San Francisco Weekly reports details on some of the criminals, crack dealers, and violent offenders who have been hired by San Francisco Public Housing since Willie Brown was elected mayor.

Several of these men have ties to TURF, an organization that participated in the 49er “get out the vote” campaign and served as “official” poll observers. TURF members were also employed by the Election Department during this same election. Note: Under Germane Wong, the records of the names of the people who transported ballot boxes the night of the 49ers election were destroyed.

  • July 3, 1998 – Without comment, a three-judge panel headed by presiding Judge Gary Strankman upholds the ban against the Committee to Stop the Giveaway’s petition. Over 10,000 San Franciscans (population approx. 700,000) have signed it. Here is a statement from the Voting Integrity Project.
  • June 28, 1998 – The investigation of Ronnie Davis on fraud and corruption charges by the FBI and HUD for his activities as COO of Cleveland Public Housing has been completed and a Grand Jury will be convening this coming week to hear testimony. Davis, handpicked by Willie Brown to head SF’s Public Housing Authority, worked with the mayor’s office to set up early, secret polling places on behalf of the 49er campaign.
  • June 21, 1998 – Mayor Brown is leading a behind-the-scenes campaign to derail State Senator Kopp’s bill to regulate early polling places. Coincidentally, today’s Sunday paper has an article on the effect of Brown’s budget on San Francisco’s most vulnerable citizens.
  • June 19, 1998 – San Francisco Superior Court Judge Raymond Williamson officially bars the Department of Elections from accepting the petitions of San Franciscans seeking to overturn the June ’97 49er stadium election. Without examining any of the evidence, the judge calls the petition’s claims “flat-out untruths.” Judge Williamson retired shortly after issuing this decision.

Specifically, he denies that:

  • The city set up secret polling places
  • Electioneering and campaigning for the stadium was subsidized by municipal funds
  • The secrecy of the ballot process was compromised

An account of these infractions as well as many others has been publicly available since June 17, 1997, yet no official from the City of San Francisco or the State of California has bothered to contact any of the eye witnesses or examine the documentary evidence.

Now available: A video of public hearings in which witnesses came forward testifying to the above as well as shocking footage of the San Francisco Department of Elections on election night.

The local media continues their ironclad policy of failing to disclose the evidence in the case.

  • June 9, 1998 – The DeBartolo Family, owners of the 49ers, sue grassroots citizens group to block their petition gathering efforts to overturn the stadium election.
  • May 11, 1998 – Petition to overturn the stadium election hits the streets of San Francisco.
  • April 27, 1998 – Recently uncovered documents cast doubt on the integrity of Secretary of State Bill Jones’ January report on the June election.
  • March 16, 1998 – The Baltimore Sun reports that the FBI has targeted the Public Housing Authorities of New Orleans, Baltimore, and San Francisco for special investigations. Suspicion of widespread fraud, corruption, and misuse of federal funds are cited as the causes.
  • March 3, 1998 – The FBI is actively investigating members of TURF for cocaine dealing in city housing projects. Mayor Brown and the “Yes of D & F” campaign made extensive use of the TURF organization, an association of ex-felons, drawing on it for both campaign and election night workers.

Since becoming mayor, Brown has arranged for hundreds of thousands of dollars in city contracts for the group. Acting Housing Authority Director Ronnie Davis, who invited TURF members into city housing projects as temporary employees, is the same individual who arranged for the illegal and early polling places in the Bayview-Hunters Point projects.

Sources:

*  January 27, 1998 – District Attorney Terence Hallinan, a long-time ally of Mayor Brown and an ardent supporter of the stadium ballot measure, declares “legal” the secret polling places opened by operatives from the mayor’s office on behalf of the “Yes on D & F” campaign based on a 24-hour investigation. Source: San Francisco Chronicle

Several months back, DA Hallinan declined to press felony charges against “Yes on D &F” precinct captain John Griffin who was caught voting twice, once under an assumed name, in the stadium election.

As established in public testimony before the Board of Supervisors on October 29, 1997, the polling places in question:

– Were opened without public notice
– Were concealed from voters who called the Department of Elections to ask about early voting options
– Were known only to the “Yes of D & F” campaign and
– Were advertised at a “Yes of D & F” rally in Bayview/Hunters Point the weekend before the election at which Mayor Brown appeared

Election fraud in San Francisco?

  • The Mayor* denies it
  • The Department of Elections won’t let the public see the records
  • The District Attorney Terence Hallinan let off the one person who was caught with just a slap on the wrist
  • The Board of Supervisors doesn’t care
  • The City Attorney sees no problem
  • “Danny” Lungren*, California Attorney General and Edward DeBartolo’s old college buddy, has “no comment”
  • The Secretary of State’s* investigation moved at a leisurely pace and its final report was disappointingly superficial.

* These individuals are known to have received campaign contributions from the gambling industry.

A video about this case is now available

The Cast of characters

Exhibits

The Local News Blackout

News

  • January 26, 1998 – Nearly eight months after the election, the California Secretary of State released a disappointingly superficial and poorly informed report on irregularities in the June election.
  • January 26, 1998 – Details about the ongoing, and as yet unreported, coverup in the Department of Elections.
  • January 12, 1998 – An Examiner editorial acknowledges that aspects of the June election merit investigation. The Chronicle, Northern California’s largest circulation paper, continues to fail to take the story seriously.
  • December 28 – The Examiner finally reports that Mayor Brown’s office was directly involved in the opening of “secret” pro-stadium-only polling places in Bayview/Hunters Point.

Documentation regarding these polls, their illegality, and the fact they were opened by city government operatives and paid for with federal housing funds was presented on this website on June 24, 1997

  • December 9 – The California Secretary of State issues a statement calling San Francisco’s conduct during the June election illegal. The Examiner puts the news on its front page. The Chronicle doesn’t report it.

A complete discussion of the illegality of the ballots used by the city for the stadium election was presented on this website on July 13, 1997

  • December 3, 1997 – A lawsuit was filed by the Voting Integrity Project and local activist Doug Comstock to overturn the results of the stadium election

The publishers of the Chronicle bury this news in their back pages. Meanwhile, it’s a front-page story in the San Francisco Examiner and the San Jose Mercury and mentioned in an article in Time Magazine.

  • December 1, 1997 – Edward DeBartolo resigns as chairman of the 49ers. The reason? He was caught in a federal probe into political corruption in Louisiana.

Visitors to this website knew this was a possibility months ago.

  • October 29, 1997 – The Chronicle and Examiner report that Director of Elections Wong ignored the Secretary of State’s warning about early polling places.

The text of Secretary of State Bill Jones’s memo regarding early polling places was posted to this site on June 24, 1997.

  • October 26, 1997 – The Examiner finally hints at the extent and seriousness of the polling place irregularities.

Documentation of these irregularities was presented in full detail on this website on June 17, 1997

  • AP and CNN pick up the story and do what the local San Francisco papers still won’t do as of May 15, 1998: give people the address to this website – August 31, 1997

Background and Analysis

* Obvious signs: Why the 49er stadium election merits investigation
* The cast of characters
* The gambling connection
* The real Bayview-Hunters Point vs. the media image: the key to understanding the scam
* Random pointers: municipal bonds, stadiums, and organized crime
* How modern cities respond to official corruption.Three case studies: Chicago, Hong Kong, and San Francisco
* Everything old is new again: San Francisco 1907

Beyond San Francisco

* The Voting Integrity Project. This group investigates, documents, publicizes, and takes legal action against election fraud throughout the U.S. They are the only group of its kind in the United States that provides this essential service. After a thorough examination of the preliminary evidence, they stepped forward to bring the San Francisco case to court.
* Dirty Little Secrets: An important book on the subject of election fraud
* Election fraud: a growing national problem
* Why this story matters

File Your Report – Did you observe irregularities on election day?

Counterintelligence:
Resources for media analysis