Controversial San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins has been accused of nepotism after hiring an old friend with no legal qualifications to run her office at an exorbitant salary.
Nursing professor Monifa Willis received the $300,000 job in March, two years after Jenkins asked her to lead the department’s Victim Services Division.
The couple were on the same high school track team and have spent time together at restaurants, football games and waxing salons over the past three years according to their Venmo accounts.
Jenkins did not advertise the position, allowing the former marijuana dealer to let her keep her $100,000 part-time teaching job at UCSF, despite rules prohibiting jobs that might interfere with office work.
“Nepotism erodes public trust,” said Ryan Khojasteh, who is vying for Jenkins’ seat. “As San Franciscans, we deserve better from our District Attorney’s Office.”
San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins skipped the ad for a chief of staff and gave the $300,000-a-year job to her old high school friend, Monifa Willis.
Willis, a nursing professor and former CEO of a marijuana company, was allowed to keep her $100,000-a-year part-time nursing job at UCSF.
The whistleblowers told the SF standard that Willis’ duties were already damaging to the department when she was in charge of Victim Services.
“She was constantly missing things because she was too busy with two jobs,” said one former employee. “I’ve seen her (teaching online classes) during work hours.”
‘He was given this position because he knew the district attorney.’
And a former senior administrator at the office said legal qualifications are a prerequisite for doing the job effectively.
“You need to have some basic knowledge of the criminal justice system, and you don’t get that as a victim services advocate,” he added.
Jenkins was appointed district attorney by Mayor London Breed in July 2022 after campaigning for the recall of incumbent Chesa Boudin.
He took on a role once held by Vice President Kamala Harris, pledging to “hold drug traffickers accountable for their crimes” and “crack down open-air drug markets” that had been allowed to flourish under his predecessor.
But the number of people living on the streets has risen to more than 8,000 as businesses and residents continue their exodus from the heart of the city.
people, has brought with it a myriad of other associated problems filling the sidewalks with illegal drug dealers, fentanyl users, and general violent and intimidating behavior near tent encampments.
Jenkins was appointed in July 2022 to the position once held by Vice President Kamala Harris.
Jenkins said Willis was eminently qualified when she announced the appointment in March, praising her “wealth of operational experience as an organizer.”
A demanding job description for the DA chief of staff role says the position holder “oversees, develops and delegates responsibility for the essential processes of the City’s preeminent law enforcement agency, including the areas of policy and legislation, personnel, communications, data and research, victim services, community engagement, front office operations, and all large-scale projects/changes and implementations impacting the Office.”
Willis’ experience includes serving as CEO of a now-defunct marijuana dispensary called New Life CA.
Neighboring Contra Costa County requires its district attorney’s chief of staff to have a law license and 10 years of professional legal experience.
San Francisco requires four years of managerial experience in a legal, legislative, or clinical social setting.
But Jenkins said Willis was eminently qualified when she announced the appointment in March, praising her “extensive operational experience as an organizer who has successfully launched state-recognized mental health programming and improved hospital operations to better serve children and families.”
“I am proud to have Monifa Willis as my chief of staff,” Jenkins told the SF Standard.
‘I have had the honor and privilege of knowing Monifa for years and am excited to work with her in this capacity.’
The questions arose just days after a former employee of the Victim Services division sued the district attorney’s department after losing his job due to an accidental “reply all” email.
Jovan Thomas, 56, filed the complaint Friday, six months after he was fired for asking Jenkins “what color” her underwear was in an office-wide message.
Shortly after Thomas sent the email, Senior Deputy District Attorney Ana Gonzalez sent the office an email saying the administration was handling the matter and asking staff to delete the email and not share it.
Thomas, for his part, said he wanted to send the message as a joke to a fraternity brother.
Jovan Thomas, 56, filed the complaint on Friday, six months after the correspondence in question, seen here.
She is now suing Jenkins, her office and the city. The city attorney is pictured here with her husband Daniel. She earned her law degree from the University of Chicago after studying political science at the University of California, Berkeley.
He was fired that day, but now claims that after his employment ended, the defendants violated his privacy and defamed him by misrepresenting what had happened.
“In the hope of cheering up his friend, who was distraught and grieving the death of his father, (Thomas) intended to text him a humorous question of the type that the plaintiff had sent his friend on occasion in the past,” his lawyers said.
‘His text to his friend was a whimsical question that was part of the plaintiff’s standard jocular repertoire with his friend.
‘In the context of their long-standing friendship, the complainant’s perfunctory question had no sexual, lewd, obscene, misogynistic or sexist meaning or intent.’
Thomas’ complaint alleges that Jenkins and others made “false, fraudulent, malicious and humiliating statements” about him to the press.
A week later, he said, he was told his termination was for just cause.
As a result, she is seeking a jury trial and compensatory and punitive damages.