{"id":495713,"date":"2026-01-06T04:54:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T04:54:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/495713\/"},"modified":"2026-01-06T04:54:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T04:54:08","slug":"sf-city-hall-employee-who-embezzled-627k-bought-himself-vr-headsets-sentenced-to-three-years-in-prison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/495713\/","title":{"rendered":"SF City Hall Employee Who Embezzled $627K, Bought Himself VR Headsets Sentenced to Three Years in Prison"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The wild corruption case of a SF City Hall Workers&#8217; Comp department employee who embezzled $627,118 and blew city money and personal tech gear has ended, and that now-fired employee is headed to prison.<\/p>\n<p>We occasionally find SF City Hall corruption stories that are just plain funny. One example that comes to mind <a href=\"https:\/\/sfist.com\/2024\/01\/25\/another-city-hall-employee-charged-for-corruption-allegedly-using-earthquake-funds-to-buy-vr-headsets\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">is the embezzlement scheme<\/a> of former assistant director of finance and technology for the SF City Hall HR workers\u2019 comp division, Stanley Ellicott. He was charged in January 2024 for invoicing the city $14,000 for \u201cearthquake supplies,\u201d though according to <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/SFDAOffice\/status\/1770909020796194936\">his charging statement from the DA\u2019s office<\/a>, \u201cThe actual items purchased were three Oculus virtual reality headsets, four Rylo Action cameras, an HDTV projector, a Nikon DSLR camera worth nearly $2,000, four GoPro cameras, three mini instant cameras, six Microsoft tablets, and four OSMO pocket cameras with expansion kits.\u201d Ellicott admits he then went and just resold most of that shit on eBay.<\/p>\n<p>That scandal got a lot less funny when we learned a couple months later that Ellicott had allegedly <a href=\"https:\/\/sfist.com\/2024\/03\/21\/sf-worker-who-bought-vr-headsets-with-city-money-now-accused-of-stealing-627k-in-workers-comp\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">embezzled more than $627,000 from the city\u2019s workers\u2019 compensation budget<\/a>. The young man seemed to know the gig was up, and he <a href=\"https:\/\/sfist.com\/2025\/12\/04\/sf-city-hall-employee-who-embezzled-627k-bought-vr-headsets-with-it-pleads-guilty\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">pleaded guilty last month<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Now DA Brooke Jenkins just announced today that Ellicott has been <a href=\"https:\/\/sfdistrictattorney.org\/former-city-employee-sentenced-to-three-years-in-state-prison-for-stealing-over-600000-from-san-francisco-workers-compensation-fund\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">sentenced to three years in a state prison<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMr Ellicott had enormous responsibility as the Assistant Director of Finance and Technology in the City\u2019s Workers\u2019 Compensation department and he is being held accountable for violating the public trust,\u201d Jenkins&#8217;s office said in a press release. \u201cI am committed to rooting out public corruption at all levels and protecting residents and taxpayers from fraud and gross misconduct perpetrated by city employees.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ellicott started a fake business in Illinois called IAG Services, and between May 2019 and January 2024, he billed the city\u2019s HR workers\u2019 compensation fund for $627,118.86 for \u201cauditing services.\u201d There is no evidence that IAG Services, which was secretly Ellicott\u2019s company, ever did any form of auditing. And this is the sort of thing that auditing is supposed to catch, is it not? <\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe website for the Illinois business \u2018IAG Services\u2019 created in Oakland \u2013 where Ellicott lives \u2013 and IAG emails sent to Ellicott\u2019s work address that appear to be created by him,\u201d the DA\u2019s statement adds. \u201cOn several occasions, Mr. Ellicott emailed his subordinates [at SF City Hall] and directed them to process payments to IAG that he had approved, enlisting their unknowing and unwitting assistance in his fraud.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Ellicott pleaded guilty to two counts of misappropriation of public money, grand theft, financial conflict of interest, presentation of fraudulent claim, money laundering, and aiding and abetting a financial conflict of interest in a government contract. <\/p>\n<p>Though ironically, the plea deal he took with that guilty plea resolves his fraud charges, the charges he got for buying VR headsets with city money that he billed as \u201cearthquake supplies.\u201d <\/p>\n<p><strong>Related: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/sfist.com\/2024\/03\/21\/sf-worker-who-bought-vr-headsets-with-city-money-now-accused-of-stealing-627k-in-workers-comp\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">SF Worker Who Bought VR Headsets With City Money Now Accused of Stealing $627K In Workers&#8217; Comp [SFist]<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Image: BERLIN, GERMANY &#8211; NOVEMBER 1: A visitor wears VR goggles to observe a simulation from inside the Einstein Telescope EMR at the Museum of Natural History during the opening day of the 2025 Berlin Science Week on November 1, 2025 in Berlin, Germany. Berlin Science Week, which runs from November 1-11, is taking place under the motto &#8220;Beyond Now&#8221; with over 350 events across the city to explore the question of how science contributes to overcoming today&#8217;s crises and opening up new perspectives for the future. (Photo by Omer Messinger\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The wild corruption case of a SF City Hall Workers&#8217; Comp department employee who embezzled $627,118 and blew&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":495714,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[158,67,132,68,729,730],"class_list":{"0":"post-495713","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-virtual-reality","8":"tag-technology","9":"tag-united-states","10":"tag-unitedstates","11":"tag-us","12":"tag-virtual-reality","13":"tag-vr"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115846372579834465","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=495713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495713\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/495714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=495713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=495713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=495713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}