San Francisco, no stranger to public corruption, now has an official whose job is to eliminate it.
The city will announce Tuesday that Alexandra Shepard, an assistant U.S. attorney who helped send former Public Works director Mohammed Nuru to prison, has been selected as its first inspector general. Shepard will be tasked with identifying and rooting out corruption, which has plagued City Hall for decades.
In just the last year, two department heads have exited due to allegations of conflicts of interest, and a once-renowned nonprofit that worked closely with the city crumbled amid accusations of financial misconduct.
Shepard’s position was created via Proposition C, a November 2024 ballot measure authored by former Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin to increase scrutiny over public officials. It passed with more than 60% of the vote. The role of inspector general will fall under the purview of the city controller’s office.
The position will have powerful tools to probe officials and pursue corruption cases, including the power to seek search warrants.
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Shepard’s job will include investigating abuse or conflicts of interest in city contracting, reviewing complaints from the controller’s Whistleblower Program hotline, and collaborating with city auditors. She will have the authority to make recommendations to the mayor, Board of Supervisors, and any city agency about ordinances and policies related to public integrity. She will publicly report on her work to the mayor and supervisors twice a year and can hold public hearings.
In a statement, Controller Greg Wagner said Shepard has “the ideal combination of experience and perspective” to serve as inspector general.
“I know that she’ll be an important contributor to proactively preventing and rooting out fraud, waste, and abuse,” he said.
Mayor Daniel Lurie confirmed Shepard’s appointment Friday. She needs approval by the Board of Supervisors, a decision that is expected in mid-November. She is expected to start in the new role in January.
Shepard attended Stanford Law and started at the federal Department of Justice in 2006, working as a trial attorney in the antitrust division. In that role, she also served as a technical adviser to the Ukrainian government on anticorruption issues.
In 2020, she became an assistant U.S. attorney in the Northern District of California, where she helped prosecute the sprawling Nuru corruption case, which involved bribes and kickbacks in a yearslong scheme by the former city official.
“Nuru was the quintessential grifter, using his position at DPW to enrich himself in a multitude of ways,” Shepard wrote in court filings. “For at least twelve years, he traded official acts, or the promise of his influence, for personal benefits in the form of cash, construction work, travel, meals, and gifts.”
Nuru was sentenced to seven years in prison in 2022. That high-profile case also involved the former director of the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Services, Sandra Zuniga, as well as the garbage company Recology (opens in new tab), which Shepard helped prosecute.
This year, Shepard was a prosecutor in a police corruption case against two former Antioch officers.
“They planned to hurt people, they encouraged each other to hurt people, then they went out to hurt people who didn’t deserve it,” Shepard told a jury in the case, according to KQED (opens in new tab). “The acts in this trial were criminal, unreasonable, unjustified, and unlawful. And as you will see, they were planned.”
According to the city’s job posting, the inspector general position pays between $167,336 and $213,512 per year. Similar roles exist at the transit agency BART (opens in new tab), as well as in Atlanta (opens in new tab), New Orleans (opens in new tab), and other cities.