by Noah Baustin : sfstandard – excerpt
It’s been more than a year since the Justice Department announced new charges in its investigation into corruption at San Francisco City Hall. But new reporting from The Standard suggests that, far from drying up, the allegations of corruption that prosecutors tapped may run deeper than previously known.
A former employee of the waste-hauler Recology now alleges that a top company executive was actually responsible for payments made as part of an alleged bribery conspiracy meant to curry favor with the public official who signed off on garbage fee increases in San Francisco.
John Porter, a former manager of Recology’s San Francisco operations, faces trial on charges he helped steer money to the company’s chief regulator, then-public works director Mohammed Nuru. But Porter said in a court filing, which has not been previously reported in the press, that responsibility for certain suspect payments should have fallen on his former boss, former chief operating officer Mark Arsenault.
“Mr. Porter refused to approve the payment unless instructed to by Mr. Arsenault,” Porter said in the December filing…(more)