In a victim impact statement obtained by Mission Local, Department of Building Inspection Director Patrick O’Riordan writes to the judge overseeing the case against his wayward former senior inspector Bernie Curran. In it, he requests restitution of some $1 million to remunerate the department in auditing the work of the man O’Riordan directly supervised for years.
Curran, who worked at the building department from 2005 until his abrupt departure in 2021, is presently slated to be sentenced in federal court on July 14. He pleaded guilty to participating in a bribery scheme in which he greenlit the projects of the clients of permit expediter and engineer Rodrigo Santos in exchange for contributions made to Curran’s preferred youth sports outfits.
Santos has also pleaded guilty to 17 federal counts, and faces sentencing on Aug. 25.
In the March 17 letter to U.S. District Court Judge Judge Susan Illston, O’Riordan tabulates the cost of mounting an audit of properties in which Santos and/or Curran were involved, and pegs Curran’s share at just under $832,000. With anticipated costs moving forward, that figure rises to $1,014,039.
The Department of Building Inspection deferred comment about what, if any, effect O’Riordan’s letter had on the terms of Curran’s plea and his sentencing — which has been delayed multiple times. It deferred to the City Attorney, which deferred comment to the United States Department of Justice. The DOJ was unable to comment.
In May, DBI reported that, thus far, 888 properties on its audit have been provisionally cleared, and 202 have been “flagged for further review or follow-up,” leaving some 4,000 properties on the to-do list. In O’Riordan’s March letter, he estimated it may require three or four more years to complete work on the audit.
Critics of the Department of Building Inspection — both external and from within its ranks — say they have little confidence in the department’s self-investigation via a purported million-dollar audit. The inspector initially tapped to lead the audit of Santos and Curran properties had, in fact, hired Santos to design plans for his own home remodel; he was abruptly removed from the project after Mission Local made inquiries.
Any large-scale wrongdoing uncovered would have taken place under the eye of elements of the department’s present management.
In order to truly know what did — or did not — take place on Curran’s job sites, say veteran inspectors, you’d simply have to re-inspect everything: “It’s like throwing out the cases from a police officer who sent racist texts,” explained a department longtimer and former put-upon Curran colleague. “They need to reinspect his work. At no charge to these people. That needs to happen.”
Mission Local is informed that letters have in fact been sent to owners of properties tied to Curran. But, problematically, many of these property owners may have no desire to open their doors to city inspectors to reveal cost-cutting, substandard work — and that would especially be the case if the property owners were cognizant of the games Curran played on site.
O’Riordan’s letter to Illston states that the department first knew of Curran’s financial relationship with Santos in August 2020 — and, even prior to that, “DBI was aware that Senior Building Inspector Curran had, at times, performed plan review and field inspection on a citywide basis outside his assigned district, which was irregular.”
In fact, Curran was so well-known for this that, according to federal filings against him, in 2014 the department was spurred to create policies and procedures around who should undertake out-of-district inspections specifically in response to his overt and egregious behavior. These new rules appear to have had little impact on Curran’s M.O.; within the building department there’s long been a term for inspectors who buck the chain of command and conduct out-of-district inspections: “a specialist.”
The notion that the department only became aware in 2020 of a quid-pro-quo element in Curran’s gallivanting about the city to sign off on projects is curious. Curran’s colleagues recall him overtly redistributing the gift cards he’d received “on the job” to his coworkers and joyously bragging about undertaking impossible numbers of inspections on a day-to-day basis; he was unsubtle on the job about his on-the-job behavior.
In a 2021 deposition, O’Riordan admitted to having four or five “conversations” with Curran about his propensity to wander outside his district, over the course of “probably five years.”
In his 2023 letter, he asked the court to hold Curran accountable for his behavior during his long tenure at DBI and the department’s subsequent inspection of its inspector.
The $1 million dollars in restitution “may hold Defendant Curran responsible for the consequences suffered by DBI as a direct result of his wrongdoing,” O’Riordan wrote. “We thank the Court for this opportunity to be heard.”
One is tempted to demand that Eskenazi’s salary and benefits also be clawed back from Curran, O’Reardan, or whomever the Court decides ripped off the collective “Us” of San Francisco.
A free press, after all, is only a concept; somebody has to pay for that searchlight!
After all, it was Joe Eskenazi’s superb reportage that motivated me to subscribe, so by rights maybe my cash ought to be deducted from that clawback.
Components of a stomach-churning cocktail: DBI and “self investigation.” Farcical prob’ly applies as well.
O’Riordan was his supervisor during the time period that Mission Local’s informants have alleged the misconduct. He’s trying to bury his complicity. It’s just a publicity stunt. It’s highly unlikely that a court would punish the wolf when the shepherd knew exactly what was happening
O’Riordan should kick in for the audit cost for being such a worthless supervisor of Curran. They’ll never collect $1 million from Curran so we the tax payers have to.
Pretty rich for O’Riordan to have the stones to make this case with a straight face given that he managed Curran.
So correct Steve, he actually signed his timesheets for years. Proof that Patrick Oriordan was either complicit or ignorant to his surroundings. It served Oriordan personal goal to remain Chief, so ignorance was the play. Until the political winds shifted he then saw an opportunity for higher position by “suddenly being outraged “ by Bernies behavior….what a joke. It will never change as long as the same gang remains in charge