It was their own Treasure Island.
Bored and unsupervised, five highly paid electricians working for the city of San Francisco spent years allegedly stealing from taxpayers during a remarkable binge that investigators say involved sex parties with prostitutes, moonlighting on city time and fraudulent billing to pay for their suburban lifestyles.
They allegedly charged the city hundreds of thousands of dollars for personal purchases, including BMW tires, lease payments on a truck and even remodeling a home in Contra Costa County's tony Blackhawk subdivision. The men are accused of running a private contracting business on city time, collecting government paychecks while working on unauthorized jobs and billing the costs to taxpayers as well.
They also are accused of hiring prostitutes for sexual encounters at their remote worksite on the former Navy base in San Francisco Bay and stocking a private bedroom in their office suite with liquor, condoms, Viagra and pornographic DVDs.
They were known as the Hetch Hetchy Power Crew, an elite unit named for the reservoir in Yosemite National Park that supplies the city with hydroelectric power. Their difficult, sometimes dangerous job was to maintain the city's high-voltage electrical system, especially during emergencies.
Five members of the power crew were arrested last year after a whistle-blower complained that crew leader Donnie Alan Thomas, 46, was moonlighting on city time. The men, along with two women accused of creating fake invoices to further the scheme, are awaiting trial in San Francisco Superior Court on felony charges. All have pleaded not guilty.
New insights
A never-publicized investigator's affidavit and other documents filed since the arrests offer new insights into how the city gave the power crew extraordinary autonomy - and how, under the direction of Thomas, the workers allegedly exploited that freedom to carry out a particularly brazen theft scheme.
At a time when fiscal crisis has forced deep cuts in public services throughout California, the case of the Hetch Hetchy Power Crew is a cautionary tale about how easily taxpayer dollars can be squandered without proper oversight and auditing.
As prosecutor Ana Gonzalez told a judge last year, "During the last four years of his employment, Thomas stole from the city in every conceivable way." Among the alleged thefts pulled off at Thomas' direction, according to court records, the crew:
-- Spent thousands of dollars in city funds to remodel and landscape Thomas' $1.5 million home in Blackhawk, billing the city for chandeliers, a $4,350 "classic Italian fountain" and $18,000 worth of "petrified seashore flagstone."
-- Moonlighted for other government agencies while on city time, allegedly bribing a federal employee with envelopes stuffed with thousands of dollars in cash to get electrical contracting jobs.
-- Billed taxpayers for a dizzying array of private purchases - cell phones, bar stools, a Palm Pilot, custom parts for a Ford Mustang and $880 worth of meat for a barbecue.
Four-year spree
The theft spree went on for about four years, investigators assert. By the time it was over in 2007, the workers had billed taxpayers for more than $235,000 in personal purchases and charged the city thousands more for time they had never actually worked, court records show.
Crew leader Thomas, whose annual city pay was more than $160,000, and electrician Miles Bonner, 61, who was paid more than $130,000, are charged with 41 felonies, including theft of public funds and embezzlement. Supervisor John Rauch, 70, who retired in 2005, and crew members Robert Mazariegos, 57, and Vincent Padilla, 28, each face one felony charge.
For accusations of falsifying city invoices, Jean Quiroz, 43, former vice president of a defunct city vendor called Centennial Distributors, was charged with 14 felonies; Elizabeth Bradford, 41, a saleswoman at Cole Hardware, another city vendor, was charged with 12 felonies. The defendants are free on bail.
Bonner, said defense lawyer Colin Cooper, is "a guy who's never been in trouble forever." He has been "completely cooperative and forthcoming" with the probe, Cooper said. Lawyers for the other defendants didn't respond to requests for comment.
Records show that Mazariegos also has been cooperative: He told investigators that he frequently didn't have to show up for work to collect his full $110,000-a-year salary and instead spent two days a week partying with a prostitute.
'Isolated outpost'
Susan Leal, who was general manager of the city's Public Utilities Commission at the time an anonymous tipster reported Thomas, said she was deeply discouraged by the scandal.
"But you have to fight those feelings and realize you've got to get rid of these people and they have to be prosecuted," she said in an interview. District Attorney Kamala Harris and City Attorney Dennis Herrera began a probe that led to the arrests.
