Sheryl Davis, the former head of the San Francisco Human Rights Commission, and her live-in partner James Spingola now face 17 felony charges for allegedly looting millions in city funds earmarked for San Francisco's black communities, spending the money instead on luxury travel, personal projects, and lavish parties, the New York Post reported.
San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins said Davis and Spingola signed contracts that steered $4.5 million in city funding to Collective Impact, a nonprofit run by Spingola, as part of what she called a "pattern of self-dealing."
The charges land on a city that has spent years pouring money into community initiatives with little apparent interest in tracking where the dollars actually went. Davis ran the Human Rights Commission and oversaw the Dream Keeper Initiative, a $120 million program created in 2021 by then-Mayor London Breed. Dream Keeper was billed as an investment in San Francisco's black communities, funded at roughly $40 million per year. Officials initially sought to strip money from law enforcement to pay for it, though most of the funding came through general city dollars.
What taxpayers got in return is now the subject of a criminal case and a damning audit.
A city audit laid out a spending pattern that San Francisco Controller Greg Wagner described as "frivolous, unethical, and unjustifiable." Wagner said the conduct "unfairly tainted the broader work of the department and requires that trust and confidence now be rebuilt."
The numbers are staggering for an agency supposedly focused on civil rights and community uplift. The audit found Davis spent $2.1 million on an ice rink rental, a DJ, floral arrangements, and catering for a single party in Philadelphia. Another $267,000 went to gala tickets and sponsorships. An event at the Golden State Warriors' Chase Center cost $60,000.
Altogether, the department spent $685,123 on San Francisco Giants tickets, the Chase Center rental, and airfare. Restaurant rentals and catering added another $353,113. Davis spent $79,950 on a house rental and other fees at Martha's Vineyard.
She also allegedly arranged the sale of 1,500 copies of her children's book, "Free to Sing," and spent $75,000 promoting her children's books and other personal projects, all with department money. The pattern of public officials treating taxpayer funds as personal accounts has become disturbingly familiar.
The audit also found Davis was known to split invoices into amounts under $10,000 to dodge scrutiny from city bookkeepers. She regularly violated restrictions on what could be purchased with department money.
The alleged misuse extended well beyond Davis herself. In 2024, she reportedly demanded the department pay for weeks-long stays at the Intercontinental Hotel for Antione Phillips, described as a pal of Davis who assisted with a department initiative. The stated justification? Phillips had "recently lost their job and trying to find a place to stay while they get new employment."
In 2023, the Human Rights Commission paid $8,000 to Total Women Empowerment Inc. to fund a "Queen's Weekend Retreat." The stated purpose was helping the unknown participants "serve themselves to continue to service their community." What that meant in practice, the audit did not clarify.
The rot was not confined to Davis's office. Other Dream Keeper funding recipients drew their own scrutiny. J&J Community Resource Center was barred from doing business with the city after it fraudulently tried to bill $100,000 in cigars, motorcycle rentals, and other expenses, city auditors found. Another nonprofit, Both Sides of the Conversation, attempted to submit invoices for pricey meals, liquor, and first-class travel. Organizers at a community bowling event sponsored by Dream Keeper and the Human Rights Commission boasted of $20,000 in cash and gift card giveaways, posting video of themselves handing out cash.
At that same bowling event, organizer Jon Henry offered a cheerful shout-out:
"Shout out to our sponsors, the amazing folks that made this happen. And the honorable Mayor London Breed!"
The sponsors, of course, were San Francisco taxpayers, whether they knew it or not.
Jenkins, announcing the charges, framed the case as a cautionary tale for San Francisco's entire approach to outsourced governance.
"This is certainly a lesson for the city that there has to be an infrastructure for checks and balances so things like this don't happen."
That lesson has been a long time coming. San Francisco spends roughly $1.4 billion on nonprofit groups and only began adding measurable performance goals to city contracts last year, the Washington Examiner reported. The city's reliance on nonprofits to deliver basic services has created a sprawling network with minimal accountability. The San Francisco Parks Alliance is under investigation over alleged misuse of $3.8 million in donor money, and the former director of SF Safe was charged with 34 felony counts related to alleged embezzlement of $700,000.
As the Examiner's Zachary Faria put it: "The city has outsourced much of its governance to an army of nongovernmental organizations." San Francisco, he wrote, "relies on so many nonprofit groups that it apparently can't even keep track of who runs them."
Davis's attorney, Tony Brass, defended his client. He said Davis was "hand picked due to her experience and connections in the business of helping SF's black community." Brass added that city officials gave her no guidance about transitioning into government bureaucracy and "asked her to develop a robust system to help those in need to advance not only individuals but San Francisco as a city where the black community could thrive." He said Davis cooperated with the investigation.
The defense amounts to an argument that the city set Davis up to fail by handing her enormous sums with no guardrails. That may or may not help in court. But it does raise an uncomfortable question about every official who signed off on this arrangement and then looked the other way while millions flowed out the door.
The Davis case is not an isolated episode. Across the country, public officials entrusted with taxpayer money have faced similar charges. A Texas sheriff was recently indicted in a fraud case, and federal investigators have stepped up efforts to root out large-scale misuse of public funds.
The federal government has signaled it takes these cases seriously. The White House recently established a new fraud task force to pursue exactly this kind of waste and abuse. Whether that federal energy translates to better local oversight in cities like San Francisco remains to be seen.
Dream Keeper was launched with lofty promises. Some of its funds went to legitimate programs, including down payment assistance. But the initiative was plagued by a lack of oversight and questionable spending from early on. The people it was supposed to help, San Francisco residents struggling to build stable lives, are the ones left holding the bag.
Seventeen felony charges are a start. But the real scandal is how long it took anyone in city government to notice, or care, that millions in public money were being spent on ice rinks in Philadelphia, house rentals on Martha's Vineyard, and a children's book promotion campaign. The growing federal focus on fraud investigations suggests that the era of unaccountable spending may finally be drawing scrutiny it has long deserved.
San Francisco built a system designed to move money fast and ask questions never. Now the questions have arrived, in the form of a felony indictment. Taxpayers everywhere should hope the answers come with consequences.
