{"id":483947,"date":"2026-10-03T13:58:44","date_gmt":"2026-10-03T13:58:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/483947\/"},"modified":"2026-10-03T13:58:44","modified_gmt":"2026-10-03T13:58:44","slug":"an-ugly-day-for-san-francisco-and-not-just-for-manny-yekutiel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/483947\/","title":{"rendered":"An ugly day for San Francisco \u2014 and not just for Manny Yekutiel"},"content":{"rendered":"

The sexual-assault allegations laid out<\/a> against Manny Yekutiel in today\u2019s San Francisco Standard are plausible and on-the-record and have induced a cavalcade of big-name endorsers to elbow past one another<\/a> for the exits like a nightclub on fire.<\/p>\n

Yekutiel announced<\/a> moments ago that he will suspend his campaign, though he did not acknowledge committing assault. <\/p>\n

\u201cI am deeply sorry for any boundaries that I crossed,\u201d he wrote. \u201cI\u2019m going to take this time to work on myself.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

This was, crucially, the second on-the-record groping allegation made against the erstwhile frontrunner in the District 8 supervisorial race.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In June<\/a>, a political organizer named Brad Chapin accused Yekutiel of groping him at a 2020 party, an allegation also first published in the Standard. <\/p>\n

Chapin\u2019s single-sourced accusation did not move the political needle in San Francisco: It was dismissed by politicos suspicious of Chapin\u2019s political tribalism, unclear about what constituted \u201cassault\u201d in San Francisco\u2019s gay community, and ultimately unconvinced after the supposed \u201cwhisper network\u201d of men who alleged inappropriate experiences with Yekutiel failed to immediately come forward with their own stories.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Well, that was then, and this is now. Accuser Ryan Clark is not part and parcel of any of San Francisco\u2019s political camps;\u00a0he\u2019s just a guy. And both he and his partner claim they were aggressively groped by Yekutiel at a public party in 2023. Like Chapin, they documented this extemporaneously, in writing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Chapin\u2019s public ordeal<\/a> following his decision to go on the record \u2014 he felt compelled to publicly denounce Yekutiel at several candidate forums<\/a> and endorsement votes \u2014 was hardly an enticement for any on-the-record accuser.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mission Local did not publish articles about Chapin\u2019s claim against Yekutiel, which would be our approach to most any single-sourced claim against any candidate. But others did. In the end, this led to additional on-the-record allegations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In June, Yekutiel denied Chapin\u2019s June accusation, claiming it to be a political hit. Today, he intimated that he may have had too much to drink when he encountered Clark, said he did not recall the groping alleged by Clark and his partner and apologized if he \u201ccrossed someone\u2019s boundary.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Incidentally, the deadline to officially remove a candidate\u2019s name from the ballot came and went in June. While Yekutiel has dropped his campaign, his name will still be on November\u2019s ballot.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Today was a profoundly ugly day \u2014\u00a0not just for Yekutiel and his supporters, but for San Francisco. It was a day of public pain and personal destruction. <\/p>\n

Beyond winning or losing political offices, I deeply hope that all of the above can pick up the pieces of their lives and achieve some manner of teshuvah<\/a> \u2014\u00a0deep introspection, an acknowledgement of straying from the path of righteousness and a return to it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

San Francisco is a town deeply lacking in introspection. Today, that came due.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"ABrad Chapin, a political organizer who accused Manny Yekutiel of sexual assault, speaks to the San Francisco Democratic Party on Aug. 26 at the Asian Pacific American Community Center at 66 Raymond Ave. Photo by Junyao Yang. <\/p>\n

Today was ugly for Mayor Daniel Lurie, who prominently unendorsed Manny Yekutiel after prominently endorsing him not even a month ago<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Following his September endorsement, the mayor said he spoke to Yekutiel about the allegation, Yekutiel denied it and Lurie believed him. That\u2019s a hell of a thing to say. Clark affirmed<\/a> that the mayor\u2019s statement that he was taking Yekutiel at face value was a factor in pushing him to go public.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I endorsed Manny in September, I believed he was the best candidate to represent District 8. My endorsement is a statement of my confidence in someone\u2019s character and leadership, and in light of the additional accounts reported today, I am withdrawing it,\u201d the mayor said on Thursday. <\/p>\n

\u201cComing forward is hard, and these survivors deserve to be heard and treated with dignity and respect.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

When Lurie rescinded that endorsement, it surely legitimized and hastened the stampede to the exit. And, to be fair to Lurie, the mayor waited months to make an official endorsement following Chapin\u2019s allegation. <\/p>\n

But Mission Local has spoken to multiple sources throughout the city who claim they warned the mayor\u2019s team that there were still more shoes to drop.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Either they were not taken seriously, or a calculated risk was made that no more accusers would surface before election day. Or the mayor simply felt enough investigating had been done, and he was confident sticking with his longtime colleague and ally.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Alas, hindsight is 20\/20. But only if you look: After a catastrophic lack of vetting led Mayor Lurie to bring about the curtailment of his appointment of District 4 supervisor Beya Alcaraz<\/a> after a scant eight days, he told the people of this city that he would do better.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not the first time I\u2019ve done something wrong; it won\u2019t be the last,\u201d Lurie said in November 2025. \u201cBut what I commit to the people of San Francisco is: I\u2019m going to learn from this. We are going to thoroughly review our vetting process and we will get better. But let me be clear that this rests on my shoulders.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mayor Daniel Lurie is going to be fine. But it\u2019s not him we\u2019re worried about.<\/p>\n

This is a hard job. One with consequences.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"AManny Yekutiel outside the entrance to the mayor\u2019s office, where a crowd gathers after Daniel Lurie\u2019s swearing-in on Jan. 8, 2025. Photo by Abigail Van Neely.<\/p>\n

Today was also ugly for San Francisco\u2019s Democratic Party, which has made a mockery of the notion of policing sexual misconduct<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Last month, following a lengthy delay while it purportedly \u201cinvestigated\u201d Chapin\u2019s claims in an opaque and, ultimately, farcical procedure, the party voted to endorse Yekutiel. It was a bad look then \u2014\u00a0and it aged like milk.<\/p>\n

In 2024, that very same county Democratic Party proclaimed that the era of alleged sexual predators in local political circles was over;\u00a0there was a new sheriff in town, and it was the San Francisco Democratic Party.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Even then, the move seemed hopelessly self-congratulatory, political and partisan. At the time, Democratic Party members from the ascendant slate of political moderates that won control in 2024 took care to note that they would not be taking up allegations in \u201ccases<\/a> that have been previously criminally investigated or closed.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

That, notably, would exclude the accusations of sexual assault leveled at political operative Jay Cheng when he was a student at the University of California, Irvine, in 2010, which prosecutors declined<\/a> to follow up on.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Cheng was instrumental not only in putting nearly $1 million behind the moderate slate that assumed control of the local Democratic Party in \u201924, he was also, according to multiple sources<\/a>, a key player in hand-picking the individual members of that slate. <\/p>\n

Those members remain in control of the party. These are the people who saw fit to take up the mantle of combating allegations of sexual misconduct in San Francisco political circles.\u00a0<\/p>\n

With great fanfare, the Democratic Party in 2024 announced<\/a> its new \u201cCode of Conduct and Policies for Sexual Assault and Harassment,\u201d riding the wave of righteous outrage over disturbing allegations leveled against charismatic Democratic politicos \u2014\u00a0most especially Mission District leader Jon Jacobo<\/a>, who is presently being prosecuted<\/a> on rape charges.<\/p>\n

And yet the policy the Democratic Party created \u2014\u00a0again, with great fanfare \u2014\u00a0was so narrowly applicable that it would not have applied to Jacobo (who is, again, presently facing criminal prosecution by the district attorney). Not unless he misbehaved at an official party or club meeting \u2014\u00a0which, whatever he did in private, he did not do in public.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It certainly did not apply to whatever happened between Chapin and Yekutiel in someone\u2019s private home in 2020.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"PeopleThe exterior of San Francisco City Hall on August 21, 2026. Photo by Zoe Malen.<\/p>\n

And this is where the local Democratic party made a farce of its tough talk on predatory behavior. It could have quickly acknowledged that its policy was, by design, narrowly applicable and did not cover Chapin\u2019s allegations. Even a non-attorney could have made this assessment rapidly.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not what happened. Instead, Party Chair Nancy Tung this summer delayed the District 8 endorsement vote, citing the ongoing \u201cinvestigation.\u201d <\/p>\n

Five weeks later, on the very day of the belated endorsement vote<\/a>, party members were handed a terse, one-page letter,<\/a> noting that the investigation spent more than a month determining what should\u2019ve been apparent within minutes: The code wasn\u2019t applicable, and the San Francisco Democratic Party couldn\u2019t weigh in here.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The so-called investigation neither confirmed nor denied that anything untoward had taken place. It did nothing,\u00a0other than provide political cover for the party to vote the way its leadership wanted.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As we wrote at the time:\u00a0<\/p>\n

Members of the local party, on the day of a vote, were handed a half-page letter announcing that an investigation determined only that there needn\u2019t be an investigation, and they then buttressed that vote based upon the outcome of \u201cthe investigation.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

This is something you\u2019d expect to see in \u201cDeath of Stalin,\u201d not a Viz Valley community center.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Separate and apart from the outcome, this process strained credulity. It was a bad look then, and it\u2019s become so much worse. It was a credibility-destroying moment for a local Democratic Party that seems dead set on destroying its credibility by any means necessary.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So, today was an ugly day. And, if no lessons are learned, no introspection is undertaken, it will be an uglier tomorrow.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The sexual-assault allegations laid out against Manny Yekutiel in today\u2019s San Francisco Standard are plausible and on-the-record and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":483948,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-483947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483947","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=483947"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483947\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/483948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=483947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=483947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=483947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}