{"id":172044,"date":"2026-02-10T16:26:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T16:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/172044\/"},"modified":"2026-02-10T16:26:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T16:26:09","slug":"san-francisco-to-pay-750k-in-lawsuit-alleging-top-official-threw-away-human-skull","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/172044\/","title":{"rendered":"San Francisco to Pay $750K in Lawsuit Alleging Top Official Threw Away Human Skull"},"content":{"rendered":"

The OCME\u2019s website said that in the overwhelming majority of death cases, it identifies the subject within 24 hours.<\/p>\n

In depositions, staff alleged that the skull had been last seen in reconstruction clay, which made it look like a mannequin head. Kominek-Adachi argued that Serrano Sewell, who thought that the skull was a prop, threw it away during the viewing room cleaning, which was needed for inspection.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was total incompetence,\u201d Kominek-Adachi told KQED. \u201cHe has an office job and had no business handling remains.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2024, records obtained by the San Francisco Standard<\/a> connected the head to an unidentified man found dead near an encampment in the city\u2019s Lake Merced neighborhood. Depositions with other OCME employees show that attempts weren\u2019t made to locate the skull until \u201cit was on the news.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe skull was a critical element in the OCME\u2019s ability to identify Doe #82\u2019s remains,\u201d the suit alleges. However, it said Serrano Sewell \u201cmade no effort to initiate an investigation into the whereabouts of the skull,\u201d nor did he respond to Kominek-Adachi\u2019s emails about it.<\/p>\n

Instead, he allegedly tried to stop her from getting a promotion by illegally directing her to take a polygraph test that other candidates for the position were not required to take. When she was ultimately promoted, she was given a temporary position, a loophole that allowed her to be fired at will, the suit states.<\/p>\n

\"TheSan Francisco City Hall on Aug. 2, 2023. (Beth LaBerge\/KQED)<\/p>\n

Then, Kominek-Adachi and Serrano Sewell became embroiled in a state consumer affairs case against a funeral home in Placer County, which refused to cremate Kominek-Adachi\u2019s grandmother, the suit states. Although she said her complaint was a personal matter, the funeral home contacted the OCME, which Serrano Sewell allegedly seized upon as an opportunity to terminate her.<\/p>\n

Court records show that Serrano Sewell said he found the skull in February 2024, after multiple other employees \u201cdiligently searched for it and couldn\u2019t find it,\u201d Urbanic said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was only after Ms. Kominek was fired that they found the skull, and that\u2019s its own story,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The ordinance to approve the settlement will be introduced on Tuesday and then assigned to the Government Audit and Oversight Committee, before the Board of Supervisors finalizes the settlement over the next few weeks.<\/p>\n

KQED\u2019s Alex Hall<\/a> contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The OCME\u2019s website said that in the overwhelming majority of death cases, it identifies the subject within 24…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":172045,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-172044","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco","8":"tag-san-francisco","9":"tag-san-francisco-headlines","10":"tag-san-francisco-news","11":"tag-sf","12":"tag-sf-headlines","13":"tag-sf-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172044"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172044\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/172045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}