San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris said Monday that she is trying "to get to the bottom" of how her office obtained millions of dollars from a grant program for prosecution of border crimes that federal auditors have concluded the city had no right to receive.
Federal officials said last week that San Francisco had received $5.4 million since 2004 in grant money intended to reimburse local jurisdictions for prosecuting crimes on behalf of federal authorities. In 2006, the $3.7 million that San Francisco received from the Southwest Border Prosecution Initiative was the most of any county in four states that border Mexico, and it was far more than the total of grants awarded to other Bay Area counties, the audit by the U.S. Justice Department's inspector general said.
The audit concluded that none of the money that went to San Francisco was justified because Harris' office prosecuted no cases that fit the program's criteria. The federal government is demanding that the city return all the money it received.
Harris, in her first public statement on the audit, said she has begun "a formal review to determine exactly how it was that certain cases were submitted and were thought to qualify for reimbursement."
The audit quoted San Francisco officials as saying the city's application for the grant money had been based on estimates of the number of prosecutions that Harris' office handled and not "actual cases."
San Francisco eventually submitted a list of 2,241 cases to support the grant applications over three years. But federal authorities sampled them and concluded that none was a valid border-crime prosecution, saying none of the cases they looked at had been referred to Harris' office from the U.S. attorney for Northern California.
Harris said she still lacked answers to many of the questions raised by the audit, but she stressed that the list of cases consisted of genuine prosecutions.
"I fully believe, based on what I know now, that all cases submitted are actual cases, cases that had actually been prosecuted," the district attorney said. "The question is whether they qualified for reimbursement."
Kevin Ryan, the U.S. attorney for Northern California at the time the city received the grant money, said federal prosecutors had handled about 1,000 cases a year during his tenure.
Asked about the 2,241 figure cited in San Francisco's application, Ryan said only, "It's a large number. It's a lot of cases. … Let's see what the review of the cases establishes."
Harris would not say who in her office had been responsible for preparing the application for federal money. She said that was part of her review.
Federal officials said the application was filed electronically and had to be approved by an executive within the agency seeking money every three months.
"I am in the process of determining exactly what our understanding was about the rules for which prosecuted cases were … eligible for reimbursement," Harris said. "I hope I will have some information in the next couple weeks." Asked if her office would return any money to which it was not entitled, the district attorney said, "We are working together with both local and federal agencies to do the right thing."
Harris said she would comply with public records laws in response to a request for the release of the list of 2,241 cases that her office cited to back its application for grant money.
"It would be irresponsible for me to assume facts that I'm still not clear about," she said when asked about the list. "I'm in the process of determining what that list is, what it looks like."
She told a reporter, "You will be given everything that you are entitled to receive."
Asked whether the grant application originated in her office or elsewhere in city government, Harris replied, "I'm not answering any of those questions because I'm still not exactly clear - and until I get to the bottom of it, it would be irresponsible of me to answer those questions based on speculation."
Ryan, who now heads the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice, said City Hall also is investigating what happened.
"Everyone is taking a look at this, trying to determine what happened," Ryan said. "I expect the investigation will be complete in the next several weeks."
https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/D-A-Harris-vows-to-probe-federal-crime-grant-3220269.php
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