Local News

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS 5 / AP / BCN) ― Embattled San Francisco city supervisor Ed Jew - charged with demanding bribes from businessmen and lying about where he lived to run for office -- agreed to resign his post, lawyers announced Thursday at City Hall.

In exchange for his resignation, Jew's attorney Stuart Hanlon said city officials dropped their ethics investigation and a lawsuit that sought to permanently remove Jew from office.

Mayor Gavin Newsom and others had been trying for months to get Jew to resign from the Board of Supervisors. Newsom had suspended him from the 11-member board pending the outcome of the criminal proceedings, and temporarily appointed budget aide Carmen Chu to take Jew's place.

The 47-year old Jew, a Chinatown flower shop owner, submitted his resignation to the board clerk on Wednesday and it was to take effect at noon on Friday.

Newsom, in a separate City Hall news conference, said the resignation was "a very good thing for the city."

"It's an important day to get behind us. It's long overdue, I wish he would have done this months ago" when the residency and extortion allegations first arose, Newsom said.

City Attorney Dennis Herrera stressed that the agreement resulting in Jew's resignation was not an admission of his guilt in the criminal cases. Jew will continue to face the two prosecutions. 

"This is not a day to claim victory or vindication, but rather a day to put acrimony behind us," Herrera said.

As part of the agreement with the city, Jew can't run for public office again for five years, or for 10 years if he is convicted of a felony. But Hanlon said his client has decided never to run for office again in any case.

In a statement read by Hanlon, Jew said he was resigning "not only from the Board of Supervisors, but from public service." Jew said he decided to leave office because the cost of defending the civil and criminal cases was too much to bear.

The multiple proceedings were "costing the city and Ed Jew a lot of money," Hanlon explained. The city's costs alone in the removal case were estimated at $300,000, Herrera said.

"I have decided to resign from my position as supervisor because I feel it is best for my family and for my district under the current situation," read Jew's statement which indicated he reached the decision "with a heavy heart."
 
His attorney said Jew was dedicated to public service, but added, "He is naive in a lot of ways and it didn't work out." Hanlon said he advised Jew not to attend Thursday's news conference because of the pending criminal charges.

In November, Jew pleaded not guilty in federal court to bribery, extortion and fraud for allegedly demanding $84,000 from the owners of eight tapioca drink shops and a dessert cafe to help expedite permits and other business with the city's planning department.

A status conference in that case is scheduled before the trial judge, U.S. District Judge Susan Illston, in San Francisco later this month.

Jew faces separate state charges of election fraud for allegedly lying about living in San Francisco to qualify to represent the city's western neighborhoods.

He is accused of having lived in Burlingame rather than a house on 28th Avenue in the Sunset District when he declared his candidacy and during his first five months on the Board of Supervisors.

He has pleaded not guilty in that case as well.
 
Jew maintained in his statement that "I am and always have been a San Francisco resident," but noted that he moved his family to San Mateo County for "a short period of time" because his wife had breast cancer and she wanted to be closer to her mother and sisters.

The statement was the first time that Jew's wife's illness was given as a reason for his alleged failure to reside in San Francisco. Hanlon, who has been Jew's lawyer only since last month, said he did not know why the information was not released earlier.

"The fact that Ed Jew resigned is immaterial to the criminal case pending against him," District Attorney Kamala Harris said of the election fraud case. "This case is about protecting the integrity of the electoral process and ensuring consequences for abuse of that process."

The mayor said he hoped Jew's resignation would at least restore any of the public's trust that had eroded under the fraud and bribery allegations.
 
Newsom explained that while the cloud over Jew had certainly affected the supervisor's family, it also "affected everybody in the city."

"This is not about Ed Jew. This is about the reputation of the political process," Newsom said. "It's about everybody else out there who's tried to do the right thing in the political process who has been cast in a negative light by the activities alleged here."

Although it has not yet been determined whether Jew is guilty of the criminal charges, "what he is alleged to have done is simply unacceptable," Newsom said.

Newsom said he would announce a permanent replacement for Jew shortly, possibly as soon as Friday when the job officially becomes vacant.

The mayor said he would confer with Chu on whether she wishes to continue in the post and said she is "clearly a frontrunner" if she wants the position.

The replacement will be in office until an election in November.

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