SFPD Scandal: DA to Dismiss 26 Felony Cases

SFPD's crime

​Public Defender Jeff Adachi says he has new evidence of San Francisco police officers lying and stealing, one example of which was caught on video from a community safety camera installed on a public street.

Adachi will release the evidence and detail the new allegations against the SFPD Mission Station officers during a press briefing on Friday. Moreover, he says the District Attorney's Office has dismissed an additional 26 felony cases tied to the recent slew of allegations of misconduct.

This is the latest video in a string of surveillance footage that Adachi has released showing what he says is evidence of police conducting illegal searches and stealing. It makes you wonder why Adachi has it in for the cops, but his spokeswoman, Tamara Barak Aparton, told SF Weekly that Adachi's office has been hearing these kinds of complaints from their clients for years.

"There wasn't always video, and now there is," she says. "It's not like we set out to go after SFPD; these are just cases where we found video in hopes it would exonerate our client, and lo and behold, we found things that are pretty shocking."

Aparton didn't give much detail, but said that both cases involve the same undercover officers who have been tied to other allegations and questionable video surveillance, including Ricardo Guerrero, Reynaldo Vargas, Jacob Fegan, Christopher Servat, and Adam Kujath.

The latest video shows a "buy bust" in the Tenderloin. The footage reveals a scenario that "sharply conflicts," Aparton says, with what was written in the police report.

In the second case, a couple accuses officers of stealing stuff from their home while arresting their son.

"It's the same handful of undercover guys," Aparton says.

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