City worker faces embezzlement charges
A former San Francisco city employee on Thursday was charged for the second time this year with embezzling public money after prosecutors said he stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from a workers’ compensation fund he oversaw.
Stanley Ellicott, 38, was the assistant director of finance and technology for the workers’ compensation division of the city’s Human Resources Department when the district attorney’s office alleges that he stole $627,000 from the fund over a period of four years, until January 2024.
Ellicott was charged with 62 felony charges including grand theft, misappropriation of public money, insurance fraud and 50 counts of money laundering, according to the criminal complaint. The charges come with an aggravated white-collar crime enhancement, prosecutors said.
In January, Ellicott was charged with eight felonies in a separate case for his alleged role in a scheme to misappropriate grant funds awarded through the city’s Community Challenge Grant Program. Those charges included one count of misappropriation of public money, six counts of aiding and abetting a financial conflict of interest in a government contract, and one count of receiving stolen property.
“The charges announced today reflect my Office’s continuing commitment to uncover official misconduct in San Francisco’s City government,” District Attorney Brooke Jenkins said in a statement Thursday. “My Office would like to thank the Department of Human Resources for its swift and thorough cooperation in uncovering the depths of their trusted manager’s great betrayal.”
Ellicott is accused of registering a fake business in Illinois that he listed as a vendor in the workers’ compensation system. Over time, prosecutors allege that he used the fake business to bill the city for auditing services on more than 600 city workers’ compensation claims, work that was never carried out.
According to the criminal complaint, city payments to the fake business were deposited into a bank account and then transferred to Ellicott’s personal checking accounts in a pattern prosecutors allege was designed to look like payroll payments. The complaint also alleges that Ellicott directed city employees under his direction to process payments to the fake business that he had approved, thus “enlisting their unknowing and unwitting assistance in his fraud.”
The charges against Ellicott are the latest in a four-year probe by federal and local authorities into corruption in San Francisco city government. The corruption investigation has led to convictions against former Public Works chief Mohammed Nuru, former Public Utilities Commission General Manager Harlan Kelly, and a slew of other local businessmen, developers and city bureaucrats.
Kelly was sentenced to four years in prison last week.
Ellicott was not immediately available for comment. Records show he was booked into the San Francisco County Jail on Thursday morning.
“I am disgusted and angered by the actions taken by Mr. Ellicott,” San Francisco Human Resources Director Carol Isen said in a statement Thursday, announcing that the department had put in place new protocols to “prevent fraud and abuse” in its workers’ compensation claims system.