In January, San Francisco Human Resources manager Stanley John Ellicott was arrested and charged with a bevy of crimes, including purportedly selling electronics on the internet that had been bought with city money earmarked for earthquake supplies.
This morning, he was arrested again and hit with more than five dozen charges — most notably, allegedly ripping off some $627,000 from the Workers’ Compensation bureau he oversaw. San Francisco jail records reveal that Ellicott, 38, was booked at 9:07 this morning and is being held on $50,000 bail for his 62 felony charges.
He is accused of establishing a bogus company and using it to loot the very branch of the HR department that he was charged with keeping both technically and monetarily sound.
“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. “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.”
The January and March cases against Ellicott are unrelated, but it was the investigation into the former that led to today’s arrest and charging. In addition to allegedly selling high-end consumer electronics bought with emergency supply money, Ellicott was charged in January with participating in a larger municipal theft and kickback scheme operated by former Community Challenge Grant director Lanita Henriquez and former Gavin Newsom mayoral staffer, businessman and city fixer Dwayne Jones.
The District Attorney alleges that Jones’ company, RDJ Enterprises, paid Ellicott — a city employee at that time — nearly $270,000 over the course of four years. Ellicott then purportedly used Venmo and PayPal to funnel some $65,650 of Jones’ money to Henriquez.
In an affidavit released today, DA investigator Mike Reilly reveals that scrutiny of Ellicott’s financial transactions regarding the earlier case unearthed a “long series of unusual deposits” into his personal bank account totaling more than $450,000. These payments emanated from a source the DA refers to only as “Witness 1,” a Chicagoan.
Reilly reached “Witness 1,” who told him her old college pal Ellicott paid her $1,000 in 2019 to establish a company called IAG Services, and to set up a bank account for IAG services using her own name and information. She said Ellicott then took over the account.
Department of Human Resources managers confirmed to Reilly that Ellicott himself added IAG Services as a vendor into the city system in May 2019. Starting that month and continuing until January 2024 — the month of his prior arrest — more than $627,000 in payments were made from the city to IAG. These “appeared to be fraudulent payments related to otherwise legitimate workers’ compensation benefits.”
While these payments were ostensibly for “auditing services,” human resources managers told Reilly that no paperwork exists to indicate that any auditing services were actually performed. Ellicott’s former colleagues were unable to locate invoices for most of the payments to IAG, and those they did locate were all approved by Ellicott himself.
All told, the human resources department provided the DA with 643 workers’ comp claims billed to IAG. Most were billed just once, with a payment between $925 and $986. Between 2019 and January 2024, the total amount paid was $627,118.86. Email records indicate Ellicott either approved these payments himself, or asked colleagues to process them.
The DA investigator traced more than $450,400 in payments from IAG to Ellicott’s personal bank account over the course of four years. These semi-monthly payments were denoted “Direct Deposit [Witness 1] D BILL PMT BILL PMT.” It was this series of regular payments that first caught investigator Reilly’s eye.
Following Henriquez’s arrest in August 2023, these payments were purportedly redirected to a different account tied to Ellicott. All told, the DA claims more than $488,000 was transferred between IAG and multiple Ellicott accounts.
Ellicott began working for the city in 2012, with a brief hiatus between 2015 and 2016. He was a manager at the human resources department from 2017 until January 25 of this year, when he was placed on paid leave.
Transparent California lists Ellicott’s 2022 pay as $187,884, with benefits of $55,613, for a total compensation package of $243,496. His most recent position with the human resources department was “assistant director of finance and technology.” The human resources department describes his position as being “responsible for the financial integrity of the Workers’ Compensation Division” — the division he oversaw and allegedly looted.
The Department of Human Resources announced today that it has implemented new controls to prevent a similar occurrence in the future.
Ellicott’s 62 charges include grand theft, misappropriation of public money, insurance fraud and money laundering. He was arrested “without incident” this morning at his Oakland home, and will face arraignment tomorrow.
Sheesh, I’m always amazed when guys like this take such huge risks for such a tiny payoff. He was in his 30s and had a remarkably high $243,000 income as an HR guy, and now he faces 12-15 years in prison for only about 2X his annual compensation. Could have just collected his paycheck and told himself each year he won the lottery again (I know, it’s not hedge fund money, but this is lottery money for an HR guy). I hope he enjoyed his few dozen nice restaurant meals and a couple of nice cars. Steep price to pay.
Not to split hairs, but his income was based off total salary of $187k. The other $55k from “benefits” is from things like health coverage, disability, stuff like that.
Hey Jo: split hairs? $243,496 including benefits as of 2022 (acc. to Transparent CA). Most benefits are like putting money in your pocket. I think many SF public employees need a barber for the vast sums they earn. In 5 yrs., Ellicott’s pay went up $40,000!! Many employees have been on the payrolls for years and do not live in SF, having secured cheaper housing in those earlier years, so the argument that those SF employees have to deal with the current high cost of living is a debatable point. And did SF have to offer such salaries (like to Ellitcott) to compete with the private sector? It should be considered a privilege to secure a public job that serves your fellow citizens.
Who’s judgement was it that Ellicott should be promoted/hired into a management position with fiduciary responsibility?
I worked as an investigator for state of ca for 31 years This guy is not going to do a day in jail He will have to pay money back But usually it will be set on ability to pay But this is just the tip of the iceberg I guarantee that if they really had an experienced investigator they would find out some other people involved as well An hr person would not know how to set this up
Abe Ruef lives.
City and County of San Francisco
is shot through with corruption and incompetence at higher ( appointive v. civil service) levels. Worked for them for 25 years
No doubt Alek. And it’s only gotten worse-, all of Breed’s cronies rotten to the core. What’s it gonna take? It’s incredible that this pipsqueak was an HR manager. Hard to believe the feds haven’t nailed Breed.
I vote for Golden Rodent
The comments here are all relevant and spot on. He was making great money and threw it all away for a not inconsiderable amount, but the risk wasn’t really commensurate to the reward. Of course the cynic in me thinks he will be reincarnated as a fraud finding expert hired by cities to sniff out corruption like some sort of Inspector Javitt
I would have expected this from a USC or Stanford grad, but a Cal grad with a degree in public policy from the State’s premiere public university? Something is very wrong here.
I’m honestly impressed he managed to grift away two entire manager-level salaries. Most city projects have to justify every labor and parts cost to the line-item level.
He should get some kind of recognition or something. The Grafties, New Grifter of the Year. Golden Rodent.