{"id":643364,"date":"2026-05-14T20:57:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T20:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/643364\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T20:57:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T20:57:08","slug":"top-california-democratic-strategist-pleads-guilty-to-225000-fraud-charges-california","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/643364\/","title":{"rendered":"Top California Democratic strategist pleads guilty to $225,000 fraud charges | California"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dana Williamson, a top California<\/a> political strategist with ties to the state\u2019s governor, Gavin Newsom<\/a>, and gubernatorial hopeful Xavier Becerra<\/a>, pleaded guilty on Thursday to fraud charges, an admission that is poised to fuel other candidates\u2019 attacks in the race.<\/p>\n

Federal authorities say Williamson conspired to steal $225,000 from a dormant campaign account belonging to Becerra, who was not named<\/a> in the plea deal, and divert the money to his chief of staff, Sean McCluskie.<\/p>\n

The funds were disguised as pay to McCluskie\u2019s spouse for nonexistent work. McCluskie reportedly<\/a> took a pay cut to join Becerra when he became the US secretary of health and human services in 2021.<\/p>\n

McCluskie took a plea deal last December.<\/p>\n

Becerra has maintained he did not know about the scheme, but his opponents have sought to link him to the corruption investigation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know that Xavier Becerra likely broke state law, and now he\u2019s at the center of an ongoing criminal investigation,\u201d billionaire Tom Steyer, one of Becerra\u2019s top rivals in the governor\u2019s race, said in a statement after Williamson\u2019s guilty plea. \u201cDemocrats cannot afford to wake up on June 3 and discover we\u2019ve got a criminal on our hands. Xavier Becerra should not be our governor, and we can\u2019t risk having him as our nominee.\u201d<\/p>\n

Katie Porter, the former congresswoman also running for governor, said<\/a> earlier this week that Becerra\u2019s proximity to the scandal made him \u201ctoo big of a risk\u201d for voters.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy opponents have spent millions spreading lies to purposefully mislead voters. Today confirms what I have said from day one: I did nothing wrong. Case closed,\u201d Becerra wrote<\/a> Thursday on X, in reference to court<\/a> documents indicating that Williamson and McCluskie hid the plan from him.<\/p>\n

Williamson wielded considerable influence in Sacramento politics. She served as chief of staff to Newsom and cabinet secretary for Newsom\u2019s predecessor, Jerry Brown.<\/p>\n

Williamson also pleaded guilty to making false statements about the campaign fund scheme and filing false tax returns, in which she claimed roughly $1.7m in personal expenses as business deductions, according to law enforcement officials.<\/p>\n

A court date regarding her sentencing has been set for July. Williamson is facing up to 38 years in prison.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dana Williamson, a top California political strategist with ties to the state\u2019s governor, Gavin Newsom, and gubernatorial hopeful…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":643365,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,450,451,3,452,453],"class_list":["post-643364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=643364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643364\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/643365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=643364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=643364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=643364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}