SAN FRANCISCO (CN) — A federal judge denied former San Francisco real estate investor Luke Brugnara’s third attempt at being released from pretrial detention Wednesday, ruling that a dramatically increased $350,000 secured bond was not enough to reasonably ensure his appearance in court.
“Given the totality of the history of the case, I am not prepared to change the ruling I made,” Senior U.S. District Judge Maxine M. Chesney said.
The Bill Clinton appointee said she was concerned about where Brugnara got the substantial amount of money, noting that a third party putting up the funds is less assurance that Brugnara will show up to court.
“My concern is if it was Mr. Brugnara’s own money, then that is one thing; he’d risk losing a substantial sum of money if he does not make court appearances. But when it’s someone else’s money … I have real concerns about that,” she said.
Brugnara offered the judge a secured bond of $350,000, a significant increase from his previously proposed $50,000, along with ankle monitoring and home confinement as part of a bond package to reasonably assure his appearance at upcoming court hearings.
Brugnara’s lawyer, Matthew Dirkes of Illovsky Gates & Calia, said the $350,000 bond would be paid for by his proposed custodian, Margarita Prikhodko, the landlord of the residence Brugnara was renting in the Sunset District for six months. Dirkes previously described Prikhodko as having an “especially close, long relationship” with Brugnara.
“She’s in the best position to assess whether Mr. Brugnara will honor his commitment to return to court,” Dirkes said.
However, the substantial increase in bond funds was not enough to sway the judge into reconsidering her ruling, given Brugnara’s extensive history of evading the court.
“When things are looking good for Mr. Brugnara, he does appear, but when things are looking tough, he runs,” she said.
Dirkes repeatedly raised concerns about Brugnara’s due process rights and the difficulties he encountered trying to meet with his attorney while in custody at the San Francisco County Jail.
“I have not had the opportunity to prepare for this with him; it’s going to be virtually impossible for me to prepare for trial if he is locked up in SF County,” Dirkes said.
Chesney was receptive to Dirkes’ worries, explaining she had tried to work with the U.S. Marshals Service to move Brugnara to a different facility that made it easier to meet with his attorney.
“I am concerned, but I am unsure about what other alternatives are,” she said.
As has almost become a ritual during his hearings, Brugnara frequently spoke over the judge, voicing his belief that he should be released from pretrial custody, given he had not yet been convicted.
“If I am presumed innocent, I am innocent, I am not on probation … and here I am being tortured, gasping for air, I have not eaten or slept for three weeks,” he said.
The interruptions finally hit a breaking point, with Chesney ordering Brugnara out of the courtroom twice when he got too disruptive.
“You refuse to stop talking and conduct yourself under ordinary provisions on how parties conduct themselves in court,” she told Brugnara. “I have given you more leeway probably than any other defendants.”
When Chesney directed Brugnara’s microphone to be muted to prevent further interruptions, Brugnara exclaimed, “Let’s just do a lynching right now!” to which the judge responded, “If I had a gallows, I’d consider it.”
Brugnara also repeated his demand from last week’s hearing that he would move forward pro se, or represent himself, demanding the judge set a trial date next week.
Chesney scheduled a hearing for Brugnara to formally waive his right to counsel for Aug. 26. However, she warned that if he continued to act out in the courtroom, he would not be allowed to represent himself.
“If you represent yourself and things don’t go well, if you don’t comport yourself properly, no self-representation, as soon as it goes awry,” she said.
Neither party responded to a request for comment.
Brugnara, 62, was on pretrial bond for charges stemming from a pandemic-era fraud scheme. Prosecutors say Brugnara submitted fraudulent loan applications for federal relief programs in 2021 on behalf of his real estate investment business, Brugnara Corporation, and received over $400,000 in federal assistance.
A federal grand jury indicted Brugnara in May 2024 on nine counts of wire fraud and three counts of money laundering.
In August 2024, Chesney directed Brugnara to be released from custody with the conditions that he would not commit any crimes or possess a firearm.
However, prosecutors moved to revoke his bail in February following a Jan. 21 altercation where Brugnara was arrested for possessing a firearm and threatening to shoot two people for trespassing at Thornton State Beach in Daly City, California.
Brugnara never showed up for the February bond revocation hearing; however, prosecutors say he kept filing court documents demanding his bond conditions be reinstated. He was apprehended by U.S. marshals on July 30, fleeing from the officers before climbing on the roof of a nearby church, where he was caught, according to prosecutors.
Brugnara returned to federal court Aug. 3, denying he knew about the February court date and claiming he made every effort to ensure he was in contact with pretrial services and his attorney.
“I am zealously excited to go to trial,” he told U.S. Magistrate Judge Lisa J. Cisneros. “When this snafu happened, I wanted to get in to set the record straight … I wanted to come in to vindicate myself on this PPP claim.”
When it came time for Cisneros to issue her ruling from the bench revoking the bail, she was interrupted several times by Brugnara, who insisted the judge was prejudiced against him and “seizing my liberty.”
Chesney affirmed Cisneros’ order last week, saying it would be difficult to “essentially overrule the magistrate judge and find that Mr. Brugnara should be given another chance for pretrial release.”
According to prosecutors, Brugnara owes more than $2.7 million in fines and restitution from prior convictions and has not reported any employment to his pretrial officer during this course of supervision.
In 2010, Brugnara pleaded guilty to filing false tax returns, resulting in a 30-month sentence, a $50,000 fine and nearly $1.9 million in restitution.
In 2015, a jury convicted Brugnara on two counts of wire fraud, one count of mail fraud, one count of making false declarations to the court, escape and contempt stemming from his bilking an art dealer of $11 million in fine art. He was eventually sentenced to seven years in prison and ordered to pay $600,000 in restitution and $88,000 in attorney’s fees.
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