Scott Neu, a former sheriff’s deputy who was fired in 2015 for allegedly forcing jail inmates to fight each other, and costing the city some $280,000 in settlements, is being rehired by the Sheriff’s Office, Mission Local has learned.
Though Neu was criminally charged by former District Attorney George Gascón in 2016 with 17 criminal counts, these charges were dropped after the Sheriff’s Office allegedly destroyed evidence in the case; in one instance, an investigator’s laptop was smashed with a hammer, purportedly due to a virus.
Neu is being reinstated to his former position — in which he worked in the county jail — the City Attorney’s Office confirmed today.
The reinstatement comes after Neu and the deputy sheriffs’ union successfully compelled the city to participate in binding arbitration in 2021 regarding his firing. The use of this alternative to the court system is written into the union’s contract with the city. Neu’s appeal hearing was held in August 2023, and the arbitrator overseeing it subsequently opted to reduce his termination to a 90-day suspension.
The arbitrator’s decision is binding, and the city is legally obligated to comply with it.
Jail detainee Quincy Lewis received a $60,000 settlement in 2018, after he alleged that Neu forced him to fight other inmates, gamble, or do pushups for food. Ricardo Palikiko-Garcia was paid $90,000 in 2016 in a settlement over his case alleging that he was forced to fight a fellow inmate for food by Neu and other deputies, who took bets on winners.
Neu allegedly told inmates to say they fell off their bunk if they got injured during the fights, and threatened to beat or mace the inmates to compel them to fight, Gascón said at the time.
But before the “fight club” cases, Neu was also accused of sexual assault by detainees David Spears, Sabrina Wigfall, and Kyle Adams between 2004 and 2008. The city settled their suits for a total of $95,000. And in 2006, Neu was accused of punching and kicking an inmate in his cell, leaving him with two broken ribs, but was not disciplined or criminally charged.
In 2015, soon after then-Public Defender Jeff Adachi publicized the allegations from Palikiko-Garcia, Lewis and other inmates, then-Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi fired Neu.
Mirkarimi told Mission Local that he testified at Neu’s appeal hearing in August 2023 regarding the reasoning behind Neu’s termination, but did not comment further on Neu’s rehiring.
“This is a significant issue in the field of law enforcement and oversight,” said Jayson Wechter, a member of the city’s nascent Sheriff’s Oversight Board and a former Department of Police Accountability investigator. “Chiefs of police or sheriffs take what they feel is appropriate disciplinary action against an employee — and then their decisions are overturned by an arbitrator, and they’re forced to take the employee back.”
Other jurisdictions have been made to rehire law enforcement officers after firing them. Here in the Bay Area, the Vallejo Police Department reinstated Jarrett Tonn, the officer who shot Bernal Heights native Sean Monterrosa in 2020 — with back pay — in August 2023. The Oakland Police Department has also struggled with losing its arbitration cases and having to rehire fired officers.
Wechter declined to comment on Neu’s case specifically, but said it is “fairly rare” for law enforcement agencies to terminate sworn members, and noted that “it could mean it’s a very serious act of misconduct; it could mean a history of problematic behavior.”
The deputy sheriffs’ union has not responded to requests for comment. Multiple messages to Neu’s attorneys have not been returned. The Sheriff’s Office declined to comment, stating that Neu has not yet been rehired.
The City Attorney’s Office has not confirmed whether Neu will receive back pay for the nearly 10 years he was out of a job. He earned $177,458 in the year before his firing.
Before going back to duty, Neu will have to complete a three-week recertification class required for California law enforcement, according to the City Attorney’s Office.
Update: After publication, Public Defender Mano Raju shared the following statement condemning Neu’s rehiring:
“The fact that Neu will be back at his old job and in a position to potentially engage in the same violent and abusive behavior is deeply disturbing, and it’s a slap in the face to our clients and their families who bravely reported his abuses years ago,” Raju said. “This reinstatement illustrates that members of law enforcement agencies are effectively immunized from any meaningful consequences for their misconduct because of protections under state law and local policies they have obtained through heavy lobbying. This must end.
“For the sake of our clients, their families, and the San Franciscans who had to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in settlements to Neu’s victims, I demand to know what steps the Sheriff is taking to ensure Neu is not in a position to have contact and authority over anyone detained in county jail. The Sheriff can and should recommend Neu for decertification under state law, and I urge the Sheriff Oversight Board and the new Inspector General to take a close look at the department’s practices and policies to ensure nothing like this ever happens again.
“We encourage the public to view the extensive investigative materials our office has collected on Neu in our Cop Monitor database, which was specifically created to shine a light on law enforcement misconduct, such as Neu’s ‘fight club,’ that rarely see the light of day.”
Not every cop is a scumbag thug, but too many are, and this fact no longer surprises us. And being a scumbag thug is clearly no barrier to career advancement.
Was anyone fired for taking a hammer to the laptop because it had a virus?
I’m going to sue the city for neck injuries, because each day has me shaking my head in disgust at the shenanigans and corruption that is in the news.
And as many of us know or suspect, the corruption and acts of unethical/criminal behavior committed by those on SF’s payroll that are reported here on Mission Local and elsewhere, are just a small percentage of total number of acts of corruption being committed.
Wtf.
I urge this reporter to do a follow up article on recourse. What can concerned citizens do to remove this person and correct the process which permitted his te hiring? Isn’t this a situation for AG investigation?
Seconded!
Sick
Everything that is wrong with law enforcement in one article.
This criminal must not be rehired. This criminal must not be paid for his crimes.
Sorry,
SFPD recruits some hard nose rogue cops in their Lateral program.
2 of 5 cops who shot Mario Woods were Laterals who’d shot people elsewhere.
They even make some of the Training Officers.
I’m wondering who this binding arbitrator was and how were they selected? Is it in the Sheriffs ‘ contract (signed by simpering city officials) that when there’s misconduct that reaches the level arbitration, the UNION gets to pick their own judge?
It’s a travesty of justice to rehire this Neu after he was engaged in such criminal activity as a sworn officer. It’s so horrible to read this after so much activism over the last 10 years to make these guys accountable.
Rehiring Scotty Neu,given the crimes he committed while wearing the badge, is not only a disgrace and an obscenity, it makes theS.F. Sheriff’s department complicitous in Neu’s criminal actions. “Reaching For the Bottom,” is the new hiring slogan for the S.F. Sheriff’s Department.
Campers,
Get one thing straight.
The toughest guy in the Sheriff’s Department is the Sheriff.
For years he was tip of human spear to, when necessary, physically force their way into cells and other spaces held by rogue inmate conduct so to speak.
He was the one carrying the Head of the Dragon in the yearly Chinese New Year’s Parade leading his Martial Arts students.
Last year (gotta be 60 ?) he repelled from the top of the tower in SFFD’s tough Fire Ground Training Course just for the hell of it.
He was trained by the best in Michael Hennessey and I’d almost bet that the problem deputy was not hired by Michael or Miyamoto.
Nearly ten years later and he still wants a job, and hasn’t moved on. Maybe there is a psychological attachment?
It’s time for Corruption in the Police Departments to be dealt with. Why, should tax payers be paying for this kind of Corruption? And it’s time to change the laws on Corruption and thus! No one should be above the law of correction or Jail,Prison time.
Right now we have a Mayor throwing money at the police department.