San Francisco DA Jenkins under scrutiny after emails reveal she shared confidential case files
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) – Recently-unearthed emails show San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins might've broken the law when she sent classified case files to a personal email account back in 2021, when she was an assistant district attorney.
Jenkins insisted Thursday that the emails "inappropriately, and potentially illegally, obtained" and she was initiating an investigation into their release.
On Wednesday, Mission Local ran a story focusing on emails it obtained from the district attorney's office that showed Jenkins forwarding case files from her work account to the personal email account of fellow assistant district attorney Don Du Bain. She sent the emails on October 16, 2021 – the same day she and Du Bain left their positions in the district attorney's office and joined the campaign to recall their former boss Chesa Boudin.
The files contained police reports for incidents involving Troy McAlister, the parolee who hit and killed two women who were crossing the road in 2020. Neither Jenkins nor Du Bain worked on any cases involving McAlister, but the parolee's actions became a focal point of the successful campaign to recall Boudin, who had failed to charge McAlister despite police arresting him four times before the accident.
According to California Penal Code, employees sending sensitive files to a "person who is not authorized by law to receive the record or information" are in violation of the law, which is a misdemeanor.
After quitting, Jenkins became a big part of Boudin's recall, her experience under him fueling much of the criticism against him. San Francisco Mayor London Breed went on to appoint Jenkins as Boudin's replacement, and Jenkins hired Du Bain as an assistant district attorney. Reports later charged that Jenkins received $100,000 from a non-profit to work the recall campaign. Jenkins told KPIX 5 she did not receive compensation from the recall campaign itself.
On Thursday, Jenkins responded to the Mission Local report saying she had sent the emails to a personal account "inadvertently" and that the files weren't used for Boudin's recall campaign. She also insisted the release of the emails to Mission Local were politically-motivated. (See her full quote below).
Jenkins' detractors like John Hamasaki, who is running against Jenkins for the district attorney seat, insisted on social media that Jenkins could be in legal trouble as she "committed at least 2 crimes, each punishable by up to 6 months in the county jail."
"There's really no getting around this one, Jenkins clearly committed crimes while in the DA's office. She will be prosecuted," Hamasaki noted in another tweet.
Mission Local followed up on Thursday by asking the California Attorney General's office if charges would be filed against Jenkins. The office stated: "To protect its integrity, we're unable to comment on a potential or ongoing investigation."
DA Brooke Jenkins' full statement:
"While I was an assistant district attorney, I inadvertently sent these files to a personal email address of another assistant district attorney. I intended to send them to his work email address. These files were never used on the recall campaign, or for any political purposes, and were never disclosed to the public.
What we do know is that my email from when I was an assistant district attorney and these files were inappropriately, and potentially illegally, obtained and shared by someone. We are now looking into how this email and the files were obtained. It is possible that more of my emails were inappropriately, and potentially illegally, obtained.
It is clear that this is politically motivated and an attempt to distract from the work I am doing every day to make San Francisco safer."