On Friday, 02.17.2012, after a jury delivered its verdict in a San Francisco Superior Court trial, Fog City Journal Editor Luke Thomas wrote that the minimal immediate consequences of the jury's verdict "belied the more politically significant accusations made through depositions in the case, that Mayor Ed Lee and former Mayor Willie Brown overrode City staff to give contracts to a fraudulent yet politically connected company, GCSI."

Listen now: Embed code:	Download audio: luke_thomas_on_brown-lee-gcsi_fraud_and_corruption_scandal.mp3 1.6MB

Former Mayor Willie Brown stood behind his former City Manager Ed Lee at Lee's swearing in as interim mayor in January 2011.  Lee then used the advantage of appointed incumbency to win the 2011 mayoral election, with the backing of Brown, and  San Francisco Congresswoman and Democratic Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, California Senator Dianne Feinstein, and former Mayor, now Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom. Last Week Mayor Lee testified, with one of Northern California's best trial lawyers present as his Legal Counsel, that he could not remember approving Government Computer Solutions, Inc. as a city contractor, even though his staff had told him that the company was "fraudulent from the start."

For the transcript of this KPFA Weekend News report, see http://www.anngarrison.com/audio/san-francisco-mayor-ed-lee-and-former-mayor-willie-brown-implicated-in-fraud-and-corruption.

For Luke Thomas's article, "Lackluster finish to case that made serious political charges," see http://www.sfbg.com/politics/2012/02/16/lackluster-finish-case-made-serious-political-charges.