By A.C. Thompson

MERCEDES HERNANDEZ- Bran knew her decision to go public would thrust her life into chaos, but she had no idea how hectic things would get. On July 29, Hernandez-Bran compiled a dossier detailing what she views as a pattern of serious dysfunction at the San Francisco Juvenile Probation Department, where she's director of human resources.

"I wasn't going to go for it anymore," she told the Bay Guardian. "I was tired of it."

Headquartered in a crumbling fortress of a building atop Twin Peaks, the department, which operates on an annual budget of nearly $30 million, is charged with handling the 3,000-plus teen lawbreakers busted within the city limits each year.

Hernandez-Bran planned to pass copies of the dossier to the seven members of the Juvenile Probation Commission, the panel that's supposed to oversee the department.

But her mission was disrupted.

The material was intercepted by a deputy city attorney who promptly launched a probe of the department – and the whole place quickly started to unravel, with investigators raiding its aging headquarters and seizing a shredder and a computer, according to press reports. Chief probation officer Gwendolyn Tucker left on medical leave amid rumors that she was facing the axe, before handing in her resignation papers Aug. 23.

Hernandez-Bran, meanwhile, has also gone out on sick leave while the probe unfolds – and she says the city attorney is investigating her for possibly leaking confidential personnel information.

"We are still investigating all the allegations," Alexis Truchan, a spokesperson for City Attorney Dennis Herrera, told us. "We can't comment further."

Although we haven't gotten a peek at the apparently explosive dossier, we've learned some of the key concerns raised by Hernandez-Bran and other whistle-blowers. They say the department, under the leadership of both Tucker and predecessor Jesse Williams, mishandled – either through ineptitude or with ill intent – at least $900,000 of state money.

They're also alarmed the department is funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars to a nonprofit staffed by lawyer Damone Hale, who sits on the Juvenile Probation Commission, a situation that looks to be a blatant conflict of interest.

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Hale is a handsome, charismatic character who's been a fixture at juvenile hall for years and works for the nonprofit Bayview Hunters Point Foundation. The organization provides legal representation to youths charged with crimes and helps ex-offenders make "a positive transition into the community," according to city records. Caseworkers at the foundation keep tabs on teens after they're released from juvenile detention.

For the past several years Hale has served as an unpaid member of the Juvenile Probation Commission, the body that hires the department's top execs, monitors its activities, and approves its budgets.

Internal department documents we obtained confirm what's long been an open secret: Hale's organization receives a sizable amount of taxpayer money directly from a department whose budget he partially controls. From 2002 through 2003, the foundation got $140,000 from the department, according to city documents.

In February 2002, commission minutes indicate, Hale voted to approve the department's overall budget, which included the $140,000 for his organization.

He voted on the juvie budget in 2003, as well, and today the Bayview Hunters Point Foundation remains under contract to the department – though we haven't yet been able to get a copy of the nonprofit's current contract or learn how much dough it's getting at this point.

As far as Hernandez-Bran is concerned, the situation stinks. "We've had staff members who went and told the commission, 'This is a conflict of interest.' But they didn't do anything," she recalled.

We contacted Hale on his taxpayer-funded city cell phone to talk about the charges. Not surprisingly, he offered a very different take. His particular division of the foundation, he said, "receives no funding from the city." The juvie money, he maintained, goes to other projects run by the foundation and "doesn't benefit me in any way."

Hale also noted the City Attorney's Office has scrutinized the matter, and it concluded there's no conflict of interest. "I'm confident the city attorney's review has resolved the issue," he said, adding that he recuses himself from any votes directly involving the foundation.

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While money flows out from the department to Hale's colleagues, it also pours into the department in the form of millions of dollars in state welfare funds. Or it did.

Whistle-blowers say the city has been forced to repay nearly $1 million in misspent welfare money. Nicole Shaw-Owens, a former senior manager at the department, said she watched as her superiors told the state they were housing 45 kids at the Log Cabin Ranch School, the city's long-term youth lockup located down the coast in La Honda. In reality, according to Shaw-Owens, the ranch was only home to 10 or 12 kids.

She said state auditors discovered the discrepancy last year and demanded the department return some $900,000. "They've only been audited for part of the money. I think they'll have to return more," Shaw-Owens told us.

In recent months Tucker has admitted to some funding screwups in commission meetings, though her version of events doesn't totally agree with that of Shaw-Owens.

The allegations of Shaw-Owens – and the ongoing meltdown at juvenile hall – don't surprise Center for Juvenile and Criminal Justice executive director Dan Macallair.

"People should've been looking at this five years ago when we sounded the alarm," said Macallair, who's been tracking trends in San Francisco's juvenile justice system for well over a decade. "This is a little department that no one pays much attention to."

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