Criminal charges against S.F. official (Julie Lee)

[Wilms]

Criminal charges against S.F. official
Sources say Shelley fund-raiser accused of diverting grant funds
Christian Berthelsen, Vanessa Hua, Chronicle Staff Writers

Friday, April 8, 2005

State prosecutors charged a top volunteer fund-raiser for former Secretary of State Kevin Shelley with grand theft and other felonies on Thursday, accusing her of diverting $125,000 from a taxpayer-funded grant to Shelley's 2002 campaign fund, sources with knowledge of the case told The Chronicle.

The complaint, filed under seal in San Francisco Superior Court, claims that Julie Lee, a San Francisco businesswoman, city commissioner and political power broker in the Asian community, forged documents to obtain state funds, used the money for illegal purposes and later falsified records to cover her tracks when questions emerged about how the funds were used, according to the sources, who spoke on the condition they not be identified.

The criminal complaint, prepared by the state attorney general's office and the San Francisco district attorney, also charges Lee with the "extraction" of a total of $80,000 from two clients of her real estate business to contribute to Shelley and disguising the true source of political donations, the sources said.

The reported criminal charges are the first to come out of several overlapping federal, state and local inquiries that began when the contributions were initially called into question by The Chronicle last summer.

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http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/04/08/MNGLFC57TE1.DTL

[LatePeriduct]

1. Oh wow

And nobody even goes after schwartzanagger's shills I wonder why. (sarcasm)