Former SF SAFE director, who managed crime prevention programs serving the Chinese community, charged with 34 felonies related to theft and misuse of public funds

(SAN FRANCISCO) Kyra Worthy, former Executive Director of SF SAFE which had been under the grant contract with the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) for decades to provide crime prevention programs citywide, was arrested and charged with 34 felonies of fraud and misuse of public funds.

The San Francisco District Attorney’s Office (SFDA) announced on July 30 the arrest of Worthy, 49, Richmond, on 34 felony charges related to misappropriation of public money, submitting fraudulent invoices, theft from SF SAFE, wage theft from its employees, and writing checks with insufficient funds.

Worthy is accused of illegally misusing over $700,000 during her tenure with SF SAFE, according to the city's District Attorney’s Office.

SF SAFE was created in 1976 as a project of the SFPD. In 1980, SF SAFE became a nonprofit organization and continued to act as the crime prevention component of the police department for over four decades.

SF SAFE’s annual budget came from a grant contract with the SFPD, private donations and grants from the City, the San Francisco Mayor’s Office, State Office of Criminal Justice Planning and local foundations.

The annual Lunar New Year crime prevention and public safety awareness campaign had been one of the top projects at SF SAFE for over two decades. SF SAFE would organize the event with SFPD to hold press events at the Chinatown gate to disseminate crime prevention tips for the Asian community.

"Each year, SF SAFE joins with the SFPD, city and community leaders to host a Lunar New Year Extortion Prevention and Public Safety Press Conference and merchant walk surrounding celebrations of the Chinese New Year. The citywide initiative educates Asian merchants and Lunar New Year celebrants on how to prevent extortion, burglary and robbery during the festive season—a time that can experience an uptick in related crimes," SF SAFE stated in its website.

Worthy is an African American and worked closely with the Chinese and Asian community on crime prevention for a couple of years after she was hired to lead the SF SAFE in early 2018. Worthy was always seen attending and making public speeches at SFPD events with the Chinese community prior to the pandemic.

However, during the last four years since the pandemic in 2020, there had been almost no crime prevention related programs from SF SAFE targeting the Asian community although the incidents of anti-Asian hate and violence have been reported at record high numbers in the history of San Francisco. The vast majority of victims in the anti-Asian hate and violent incidents were elderly Asian women.

For many decades, SF SAFE had always hired Chinese-speaking specialists to educate the Chinese community in Chinese language with crime prevention tips by holding workshops in Asian neighborhoods. But no staffer with that Chinese language capacity had been seen to work at SF SAFE to connect with the Chinese community since the pandemic.

Members of the Chinese community who are familiar with the work of SF SAFE have raised concerns for sometime if Worthy had failed to do the job during the past several years while Chinese and Asian Americans have been victims of hate crime at a historically record high level.

According to news reports by a number of local news media in January 2024, Worthy's alleged misuse of public funds came to light when the City's Controller's Office released a report on January 18 finding that SF SAFE had spent police funds improperly in too luxurious ways and the expenses were reimbursed by the SFPD. The report identified at least $79,000 in expenses wrongly reimbursed by SFPD.

The Controller's Office in the report was critical of the SFPD for dispersing some $3.8 million of the $5.3 million that it reimbursed SF SAFE for expenses mostly for crime prevention education services between July 2018 and March 2023 without checking for receipts.

Worthy was fired on January 24, 2024 by the SF SAFE's Board of Directors which also made a decision to temporarily cease its operations in the meantime.

At the time the Board made decisions in January related to the alleged misconduct of Worthy, SF SAFE was in debt by at least $1.2 million to various vendors who performed work for the nonprofit organization.

Before being hired by SF SAFE as executive director, Worthy was affiliated with another now-defunct nonprofit organization, For Richmond, for seven years.

Worthy is a resident of Richmond at the East Bay. According to news reports, Worthy began working as a community organizer with For Richmond and later became executive director and sole paid employee from 2013 to 2016.

News media also reported that the Contra Costa County school district wrote in a September 2017 letter to Worthy that For Richmond had failed to supply promised services and falsified invoices to the district and allegedly breached three of five contracts owing the district more than $230,000.

Worthy was hired by SF SAFE and began to lead the nonprofit organization in the beginning of 2018 until January 24, 2024.

The San Francisco District Attorney’s Office said in the press release when the criminal charges against Worthy was announced that SFPD requested the SFDA to undertake the investigation because of SF SAFE’s relationship with SFPD.

"During the course of this investigation, District Attorney Investigators determined that at least some of the money allegedly stolen by Ms. Worthy was derived from a substantial donation to SF SAFE made by a person with a professional relationship with District Attorney Brooke Jenkins," SFDA wrote in the press release. "Accordingly, out of an abundance of caution and to avoid the appearance of impropriety, DA Jenkins recused herself from the investigation and potential prosecution of this matter in February of this year."

Chief Assistant District Attorney Ana Gonzalez has supervised the investigation and will continue to supervise the prosecution of this case as the Acting District Attorney, according to SFDA.

Among 34 felonies, Worthy is charged with two counts of misappropriation of public funds in that she received more than $500,000 from the City’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development (OEWD) pursuant to a contract and failed to pay it over to the contract’s subgrantees, Bay Area Community Resources and the Calle 24 Latino District ; four counts of submitting fraudulent invoices to OEWD relating to this contract.

The remaining 28 felonies include one count of grand theft by embezzlement where she fraudulently used more than $100,000 of SF SAFE funds for her own use; one count of failing to pay withheld taxes; 24 counts of wage theft against employees of SF SAFE between September of 2023 and January of 2024; two counts of “check kiting” to defraud when she wrote checks on SF SAFE bank accounts knowing the account without sufficient funds.

The SFDA stated that when Worthy was hired at the beginning of 2018, SF SAFE had cash reserves in excess of $300,000.

SF SAFE received millions of dollars of public and private funds during Worthy's tenure for six years. In January 2024 when Worthy was terminated, SF SAFE left with no assets and ceased operations due to Worthy’s theft and mismanagement, according to SFDA.

The affidavit filed by the SFDA stated that Worthy paid her landlord with three SF SAFE cashier’s checks totaling $8,000 in 2018. She told accountants of SF SAFE that the funds were for “community meetings” and Chinatown National Night Out which was started by then Central Police Captain David Lazar and late Chinatown leader Rose Pak in 2014.

In 2019 and 2020, Worthy spent more than $90,000 of SF SAFE funds on a home healthcare worker for her parents in North Carolina. She categorized these payments as community meeting expenses and part of a safety project for Supervisorial District 10 where Supervisor Shamann Walton represents.

Worthy allegedly stopped withholding and paying payroll taxes for 27 employees in September of 2023 through January 2024 when SF SAFE ceased operations.

The Police Department, which awarded a five-year, $5 million grant to SF SAFE in 2018, did not routinely conduct oversight of the organization’s spending of the funds, according to the Controller's Office report.

Worthy was released on a $100,000 bond on July 30 after she was arrested.