Mohammed Nuru (born November 15, 1962, England) is an American former civil servant and convicted criminal. He was formerly the Director of the

San Francisco Department of Public Works San Francisco Public Works (SFPW) is a governmental agency for the City and County of San Francisco in California. They are responsible for the care and maintenance of San Francisco’s streets and infrastructure. The department designs, builds, ...

from 2011 until 2020 where he was involved in a corruption scandal. He was convicted of honest services fraud and sentenced to 7 years in prison.

Personal life

Nuru was born in the United Kingdom and raised on a farm in Nigeria. In 1983, he immigrated to the United States to study landscape architecture at

Kansas State University Kansas State University (KSU, Kansas State, or K-State) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university with its main campus in Manhattan, Kansas, United States. It was opened as the state's land-grant coll ...

. Nuru and San Francisco mayor

London Breed London Nicole Breed (born August 11, 1974) is an American politician who served as the 45th mayor of San Francisco from 2018 to 2025. She was supervisor for District 5 and was president of the Board of Supervisors from 2015 to 2018. Raised in t ...

dated. Following the corruption scandal, Breed acknowledged having accepted gifts from Nuru during her tenure as Mayor and was fined $8,292 for the ethics violation. The gift involved Nuru paying for repairs to Breed's car.

Career

In 2011 Nuru became the director of the San Francisco Department of Public Works. During his time as director he worked to improve street sanitation and oversaw drastic changes to the Market Street corridor. Addressing homelessness was a major concern during his time as Director; however Nuru diverted homelessness alleviation funds to his friends. Nuru was instrumental in adopting the use of liquid repellent paint on city infrastructure to discourage public urination. He was the chairman of the board of directors at the

Transbay Joint Powers Authority The San Francisco Transbay development is a completed redevelopment plan for the neighborhood surrounding the Salesforce Transit Center site, South of Market (San Francisco), South of Market near the Financial District (San Francisco), Financial ...

Corruption scandal

Nuru was arrested by the

FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and Federal law enforcement in the United States, its principal federal law enforcement ag ...

in January 2020 under charges of "corruption, bribery kickbacks and side deals". Having previously been "placed on leave and removed from all decision-making since the arrest", Nuru resigned on February 10, 2020, as announced by Mayor Breed." In June 2021 Nuru was arrested for brandishing a knife at the San Francisco-Marin Food Bank in Dogpatch in a case unconnected to the alleged bribery. Nuru underwent a court ordered psychiatric evaluation and no charges resulted from the arrest. In January 2022 Nuru pled guilty to one count of fraud in exchange for a

plea bargain A plea bargain, also known as a plea agreement or plea deal, is a legal arrangement in criminal law where the defendant agrees to plead guilty or no contest to a charge in exchange for concessions from the prosecutor. These concessions can include a ...

. Nuru was subsequently sentenced to 84 months (7 years) in federal prison. After he was sentenced, Nuru was stripped of his city pension of $7,600 per month. Nuru is incarcerated at the

United States Penitentiary, Lompoc The Federal Correctional Institution, Lompoc II is a low (formerly also a high, and then medium) security United States federal prison for male inmates in Lompoc, California. It is part of the Lompoc Federal Correctional Complex (FCC Lompoc) and ...

, California. Over a dozen San Francisco employees and city contractors have been either charged or found guilty of

bribery Bribery is the corrupt solicitation, payment, or Offer and acceptance, acceptance of a private favor (a bribe) in exchange for official action. The purpose of a bribe is to influence the actions of the recipient, a person in charge of an official ...

money laundering Money laundering is the process of illegally concealing the origin of money obtained from illicit activities (often known as dirty money) such as drug trafficking, sex work, terrorism, corruption, and embezzlement, and converting the funds i ...

, and

fraud In law, fraud is intent (law), intentional deception to deprive a victim of a legal right or to gain from a victim unlawfully or unfairly. Fraud can violate Civil law (common law), civil law (e.g., a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrato ...

as part of the Nuru corruption scandal.

References

{{Reflist American civil servants 21st-century American criminals Living people 1962 births 20th-century English criminals