San Francisco

It turns out that the SF Democratic Party is riddled with incidents of covering up, or ignoring sexual misconduct:

Mission Local has spoken to multiple sources throughout the city who claim they warned (Mayor Lurie)’s team that there were still more shoes to drop (about Yakutiel's conduct).

The Party carefully carved out exceptions for one of its fundraising operatives, Jay Cheng who was accused of sexual assault:

In 2024, that very same county Democratic Party proclaimed that the era of alleged sexual predators in local political circles was over — there was a new sheriff in town and it was the San Francisco Democratic Party.

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 “cases that have been previously criminally investigated or closed.”

That notably would exclude the accusations of sexual assault leveled at political operative Jay Cheng when he was a UC Irvine student in 2010, which prosecutors declined to follow up on.

Cheng was instrumental not only in putting nearly $1 million behind the moderate slate that assumed control of the local Democratic Party in ’24, he was also, according to multiple sources, a key player in hand-picking the individual members of that slate. Those members remain in control of the party. These are the people who saw fit to take up the mantle of combatting allegations of sexual misconduct in San Francisco political circles.

And also Mission District leader Jon Jacobo, who is being prosecutedon rape charges:

With great fanfare, the Democratic Party in 2024 announced its new “Code of Conduct and Policies for Sexual Assault and Harassment,” riding the wave of righteous outrage over disturbing allegations leveled against charismatic Democratic politicos — most especially Mission District leader Jon Jacobo, who is presently being prosecuted on rape charges.

And yet the policy the Democratic Party created — again, with great fanfare — was 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 — which, whatever he did in private, he did not do in public.