A retired state parole officer and Chinatown community leader is the latest to face charges in San Francisco’s ongoing public corruption scandal.
Ken Hong Wong, 58, retired from his parole officer position in 2015. He’s now accused of bribing former Public Works director Mohammed Nuru with four separate $5,000 payments over an eight month period.
Federal prosecutors allege Wong gave Nuru the money between December 2018 and July 2019 to secure Nuru’s influence and help hire someone seeking a public works engineering job.
Wong could face as much as 15 years in prison and $500,000 in fines if convicted.
Nuru is currently serving seven years in federal prison as part of a probe into San Francisco’s Public Works Department that has resulted in charges against 16 defendants, so far.
Steve Gruel, Wong’s attorney, said his client was simply a “go-between” in the case. He says Wong has known Nuru for years because he ran a work program to assimilate parolees into the community and help clean up the Tenderloin and Chinatown areas.
Wong was approached by an unnamed intermediary, according to Gruel, who was apparently working on behalf of a woman seeking a public works engineering job.
Federal documents filed in the Nuru case contend he had acknowledged accepting $20,000 to help an unidentified job seeker.
Wong, his attorney said, gave Nuru the money he got from the intermediary on behalf of the job-seeker.
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“He made a poor exercise in judgment,” Gruel said of Wong’s role. “He was clearly part of the conspiracy, but he was a very low-level player.”
Gruel said while the female job-seeker in the case did get hired for the post, the person left the department within weeks.
He said his client was informed by the FBI that he would be charged and was formally arraigned Tuesday. He entered a not-guilty plea to bribery and corruption counts and was ordered released on $20,000 bond.
“Ken Wong has an arm’s length list of accolades – as a state parole officer and community work in San Francisco,” Gruel said. “He had this long career, yet it has this blemish – an exercise in poor judgment that he will admit to the government, with the hope a fair sentence will not include incarceration.”
