{"id":391863,"date":"2026-07-09T10:36:36","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T10:36:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/391863\/"},"modified":"2026-07-09T10:36:36","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T10:36:36","slug":"former-newsom-chief-of-staff-to-be-sentenced-in-september","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/391863\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Newsom chief of staff to be sentenced in September"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dana Williamson, a former chief of staff to Gov. Gavin Newsom, will be sentenced in September after she pled guilty in May<\/a> to bank fraud, filing a false tax return and lying to the FBI. Williamson\u2019s sentencing hearing is set for Sept. 17 at the Robert T. Matsui federal courthouse in downtown Sacramento, according to court records. A hearing to set a date for her sentencing was scheduled for Thursday, but has been continued after prosecutors and the defense reached an agreement.<\/p>\n

Williamson, who served as Newsom\u2019s chief of staff from 2022 to 2024, is facing up to 38 years in prison and fines of up to $1.35 million for her role in a corruption scheme to siphon $225,000 in campaign funds from former Attorney General Xavier Becerra.<\/p>\n

In May, Williamson admitted in court that she had helped Sean McCluskie, Becerra\u2019s former chief of staff, funnel the money to his bank account to pad his salary after McCluskie took a pay cut to follow Becerra to Washington, D.C., after Becerra joined the Biden administration.<\/p>\n

Last November, she was arrested by the FBI and charged along with McCluskie and lobbyist Greg Campbell. Campbell admitted to falsifying business contracts to help Williamson respond to a subpoena about a COVID-19 loan she had obtained for her consulting business.<\/p>\n

Both Campbell and McCluskie are awaiting sentencing for their roles in the scheme, which shook Sacramento and D.C. after the FBI wiretapped dozens of lobbyists during its investigation<\/a>. A fourth conspirator, consultant Alexis Podesta, agreed to cooperate with federal authorities<\/a> and was not indicted, according to her attorney Bill Portanova.<\/p>\n

Before joining Newsom\u2019s office, Williamson had served as an adviser to former Gov. Jerry Brown and Becerra, managing his campaign accounts, and worked as a lobbyist for PG&E.<\/p>\n

This story was originally published July 7, 2026 at 9:47 AM.<\/p>\n

Related Stories from Sacramento Bee<\/p>\n


\n \"Profile
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

Lia Russell<\/a><\/p>\n

The Sacramento Bee<\/p>\n

Lia Russell covers California\u2019s governor for The Sacramento Bee\u2019s Capitol Bureau. Originally from San Francisco, Lia previously worked for The Baltimore Sun and the Bangor Daily News in Maine.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dana Williamson, a former chief of staff to Gov. Gavin Newsom, will be sentenced in September after she…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":391864,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[121,123,122],"class_list":["post-391863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391863","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=391863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391863\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/391864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=391863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=391863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=391863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}