Man Accused of Selling Drugs in SF Was Coerced Into It, Jury Finds in Unprecedented Verdict

A San Francisco jury acquitted a man of felony drug charges last month after he was found to have been coerced into selling drugs in the Tenderloin, marking a first for the Bay Area, Public Defender Mano Raju announced Tuesday.

The verdict comes as Raju’s office is calling on District Attorney Brooke Jenkins, who faces a tight reelection bid this fall, to reconsider her office’s approach to drug dealing that the public defender says is being orchestrated by human traffickers. Local and federal law enforcement agencies have ramped up efforts to disrupt the sale of fentanyl through increased arrests, citations and deportations.

“There are a great number of cases being charged by the prosecution against our clients for very low-level drug dealing. Oftentimes, our clients are victims of human trafficking or labor trafficking,” Raju said at a rally outside the Hall of Justice. “And oftentimes they are selling drugs to avoid further violence being done to them.”

The defendant who was acquitted last month is a 27-year-old Honduran man whose name was not provided by attorneys. Raju said the district attorney’s office should treat such labor trafficking cases as it does sex trafficking cases and sign a certification stating that the acquitted defendant was a victim of a crime, which would qualify them for what’s known as a T-visa or U-visa.

The district attorney’s office, meanwhile, has filed more criminal charges against alleged drug dealers and users since Jenkins was elected in 2022, totaling nearly 1800, and her office reports that it has secured 314 felony narcotics convictions during that time. Attorneys with the public defender’s office said their caseloads have ballooned in recent years as prosecutors’ filings ticked up.

“My office has been filing pre-trial detention motions in the most egregious narcotics dealing cases and those involving repeat offenders because of the extreme public safety risk posed by these drug dealers,” Jenkins said in a previous statement to KQED. “We are making slow progress and need to continue our efforts to see more improvement.”

Last year, federal law enforcement agencies also stepped up drug-related arrests and deportation.

Although San Francisco’s sanctuary city policy bars most cooperation between local law enforcement and immigration agents, federal authorities, since last fall, have started prosecuting more drug dealing cases. Immigrants charged with federal crimes for low-level drug dealing have been offered plea deals that often end with credit for time served plus a one-day sentence — and because federal prosecutors are not barred from working directly with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, those plea deals can be a fast track to deportation.

Ismail Ramsey, the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of California, did not respond to requests for comment for this story. However, Ramsey told KQED in July that the approach has been used for more than 100 Tenderloin cases so far.

Cases that are “whisked away” to federal court stop the public defender’s office from being involved, Raju said, noting that of seven trials in which his office argued a human trafficking defense in the last two years, two ended in guilty verdicts, four ended in hung juries, and the most recent led to an acquittal.

Jenkins’ sole opponent in November’s election, Ryan Khojasteh, supports having federal authorities assist in arresting drug dealers but said the agencies should be more focused on high-level dealers and cartels.

“When it comes to really competently and holistically addressing the drug trade in our city, we have to go after those at the top to make a meaningful difference,” he said. “You can put away one low-level drug dealer and three are in their place tomorrow.”

One of the ways to do that, Khojasteh proposed, is by getting defendants to share confidential information in exchange for a favorable plea deal, which could include protected status to stay in the country.

“We should be finding out who is the one coercing these people,” he said.

Meanwhile, candidates vying for mayor have largely shown support for federal prosecutors’ and law enforcement agencies’ crackdown on the city’s drug markets.

Former supervisor and interim mayor Mark Farrell has called for a fentanyl state of emergency to leverage more resources and bring the National Guard to areas like the Tenderloin to further these efforts.

“Our sanctuary city policy was never meant to harbor criminals or those peddling death on our streets. Mayor Breed has had six years to do everything in her power to make a meaningful difference on our streets, and her latest efforts are too little too late for San Francisco,” Farrell said.

Supervisor Ahsha Safai, who immigrated to the U.S. from Iran as a child, is a strong supporter of the sanctuary city policy but said drug dealers should be held accountable as overdose rates continue at epidemic levels and neighborhoods struggle with the effects of street-level drug dealing.

“I’m sure there are a handful of cases of someone being legitimately trafficked. But ultimately, people are selling an extremely lethal weapon, this drug, on our streets,” he said. “And the feds are deciding to step in and resolve something that the local government and the mayor had let grow out of control, quite frankly.”

For her part, Mayor London Breed has touted the work the federal government has done with her administration so far.

Jeff Cretan, a spokesperson for the mayor’s office, said that the city “needed support for prosecuting these crimes” and that Breed believes the federal government can be effective in doing so. “The devastation that fentanyl is having in our city and across this country is powerful,” Cretan said. “While we aren’t changing our [sanctuary city] laws here locally, there is a need for more enforcement to stop the flow of this drug.”