San Francisco’s controversial DA Brooke Jenkins has been accused of nepotism after hiring an old friend with no legal qualifications to run her office on an eye-watering salary.
Nursing professor Monifa Willis was given the $300,000 job in March, two years after Jenkins asked her to head the department’s Victim Services Division.
The pair were on same high school track-and-field team and have hung out together at restaurants, football games and waxing salons in the last three years according to their Venmo accounts.
Jenkins did not advertise the post and allowed the former marijuana dealer to her to keep her $100,000 part-time teaching job at UCSF, despite rules banning jobs that might interfere with the office’s work.
‘Nepotism erodes public trust,’ said Ryan Khojasteh who challenging Jenkins for her job. ‘As San Franciscans, we deserve better from our District Attorney’s Office.’
San Francisco DA Brooke Jenkins did not advertise for a chief-of-staff and gave the $300,000-a-year job to her old high school friend Monifa Willis
Willis, a professor of nursing and former CEO of a marijuana company was allowed to keep her $100,000-a-year part-time nursing job at UCSF
Whistleblowers told the SF Standard that Willis’s obligations were already damaging the department when she was in charge of Victim Services.
‘Stuff fell through the cracks all the time because she was too busy doing two jobs,’ a former staffer said. ‘I’ve seen her (teaching online) classes during work hours.
‘She was given this position because she knew the DA.’
And a former senior administrator in the office said legal qualifications are a pre-requisite for doing the job effectively.
‘You have to have some basic understanding of the criminal justice system, and you don’t get that as a victim services advocate,’ he added.
Jenkins was appointed DA by city mayor London Breed in July 2022 after campaigning for the recall of incumbent Chesa Boudin.
She stepped into a role once held by Vice-President Kamala Harris promising to ‘hold drug dealers accountable for their crimes’ and ‘end open-air drug markets’ which had been allowed to proliferate under her predecessor.
But the number of people living on the streets has soared to more than 8,000 as businesses and residents have continued their exodus from the heart of the city.
people, has brought with it a myriad of other associated problems filling the sidewalks with illegal drug dealers, fentanyl users and all round violent and intimidating behavior close to the tent encampments.
Jenkins was appointed in July 2022 to the job once held by Vice-President Kamala Harris
Jenkins said that Willis was eminently qualified when she announced the appointment in March, hailing her ‘wealth of operational experience as an organizer’
An exacting job description for the role of DA chief-of-staff says the office holder ‘oversees, develops and delegates responsibilities for essential processes of the city’s preeminent law enforcement agency including areas of policy and legislation, staffing, communications, data and research, victim services, community engagement, front office operations and all large scale projects/changes and implementations that impacts the Office’.
Willis’s experience includes time as the CEO of a now defunct marijuana dispensary called New Life CA.
Neighboring Contra Costa County requires its DA’s chief-of-staff to have a law license and 10 years of professional legal experience.
San Francisco requires four years of managerial experience in a legal, legislative or clinical social environment.
But Jenkins said Willis was eminently qualified when she announced the appointment in March, hailing her ‘wealth of operational experience as an organizer that has successfully launched state recognized mental health programming and improved hospital operations to better serve children and families’.
‘I am proud to have Monifa Willis serve as my chief of staff,’ Jenkins told the SF Standard.
‘I have had the honor and privilege of knowing Monifa for years and am excited to work with her in this capacity.’
The questions emerged just days after a former employee of the Victim Services division sued the DA’s department after losing his job because of an accidental ‘reply-all’ email.
Jovan Thomas, 56, filed the complaint Friday, six months after he was fired for asking Jenkins ‘what color’ her panties were in a message sent to the entire office.
Soon after Thomas sent the email, Chief Assistant District Attorney Ana Gonzalez sent the office an email saying the issue was being handled by the administration and asking staff to delete the email and not share it.
Thomas, on his part, claimed he meant to send the message as a joke to a fraternity brother.
Jovan Thomas, 56, filed the complaint Friday, six months after the correspondence in question, seen here
He is now suing Jenkins, her office, and the city. The city prosecutor is seen here with her husband Daniel. She obtained her law degree from the University of Chicago after studying political science at UC Berkeley
He was fired that day, but now claims that after his employment was terminated, defendants violated his privacy and defamed him by misrepresenting what had happened.
‘Hoping to cheer up his friend, who was distraught and grieving the death of his father, (Thomas) intended to text his friend a jokey question of the sort that that plaintiff had sent his friend on occasion in the past,’ his lawyers claimed.
‘His text to his friend was a whimsical question that was part of plaintiff’s standard jocular repertoire with his friend.
‘In the context of their long-time friendship, plaintiff’s flip question had no sexual, off-color, obscene, misogynistic or sexist meaning or intent.’
Thomas’s complaint alleges Jenkins and others made ‘false, fraudulent, malicious and humiliating statements’ about him to the press.
A week later, he said, he was told his termination was for cause.
He is seeking a jury trial and compensatory and punitive damages as a result.
