By St. John Barned-Smith : sfchronicle – excerpt
Prominent San Francisco engineer Rodrigo Santos, who has pleaded guilty to bank fraud, wire fraud and tax evasion charges as part of a wide-ranging federal corruption probe, was sentenced Friday to 30 months in prison and three years of supervised release.
Santos has pleaded guilty to charges that he stole money from clients through check fraud and improperly influencing a senior building inspector by having clients donate money to the official’s favored rugby club.
Prosecutors wanted 51 months in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised release. Santos’ attorney Randall Knox had requested a sentence of just over a year in prison.
At the beginning of Friday’s hearing, Senior District Judge Susan Illston said she was inclined to sentence Santos to 30 months, as the probation department recommended.
“You had everything going for you — but I find the offenses set out here to be very, very serious and very destructive,” Illston said. “The effect of fraud on city and county of San Francisco was substantial.”…(more)