In a narrative reminiscent of a certain TV anti-hero, Rodrigo Santos has become San Francisco’s own version of Walter White.
While Walter White transformed from a high school chemistry teacher to a feared drug kingpin, Santos, a once-respected Stanford engineer and former track star, morphed into the city’s leading corrupt engineer and fraudster.
The situation becomes even more perplexing when considering that unlike White, Santos managed to retain his professional status while building his illicit empire, shielded from accountability by those meant to oversee him.
The saga took a significant turn this week when the City Attorney’s Office announced a $1.425 million settlement with Santos—seven years after initially suing him.
This came amidst a backdrop of unsettling accusations that painted a picture of rampant corruption and deceit.
In 2023, Santos was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison for stealing approximately $1.6 million from clients and business partners.
However, he only served less than 20 months behind bars after being convicted of numerous charges, including bribing a former senior building inspector, Bernie Curran.
Particularly disturbing was the revelation that Santos altered checks made out to his clients, changing them from ‘DBI’ to ‘RoDBIgo Santos’ and funneled them into his personal bank account.
San Francisco’s city regulations were altered as a direct response to Santos’s actions back in 2019, with the city now requiring checks to be made out to ‘CCSF-DBI’ instead of ‘DBI.’
But the settlement amount of $1.425 million raises questions about the efficacy of the legal pursuit against Santos.
The sum is less than the cost of a modest home in the Sunset District and likely represents only a fraction of the resources the city expended in chasing Santos since 2018.
According to city officials, this figure reflects the maximum that the city felt could be recouped from Santos, as the full extent of his financial dealings—possibly including assets stashed overseas—remains a mystery.
In the aftermath of Santos’s questionable engineering practices, clients now live in homes with unpermitted and potentially unsafe alterations that could drastically inflate their property values.
Santos was adept at what is referred to as ‘serial permitting,’ wherein he would apply for permits for minor work but instead undertake extensive projects, often without the proper oversight.
For years, he was protected and enabled by the Department of Building Inspection, a reality that ignites outrage among those who saw the impropriety unfold up close.
Many employees at the DBI were aware that pushing back against Santos could have severe repercussions for their careers.
A veteran inspector commented on this dynamic, stating that any scrutiny directed at Santos’s sites was likely to prompt backlash from superiors.
Instead, inspectors were often instructed to simply have an engineer sign off on projects, creating a dangerous cycle of complicity.
The accusations against Santos include not only financial fraud but also the more alarming charges related to dangerous excavation practices.
These unpermitted diggings posed significant life-safety risks for workers and allegedly undermined the structural integrity of clients’ and neighboring properties.
Moreover, Santos is accused of submitting forged permits, with an associate reportedly stealing professional stamps from various engineering firms to facilitate these forgeries.
The implications of such actions are grave, especially in a city located between two major earthquake faults, where unsafe construction could lead to catastrophic consequences.
One specific incident involved a project for Mel Murphy, wherein Santos had claimed he could augment an 854-square-foot home into a sprawling 5,139 square feet while retaining its existing walls and foundations.
The project, however, resulted in a collapse just one year later, illustrating a troubling pattern of Santos’s engineering being accepted despite blatant risks.
In what seems like a glaring oversight, even after the collapse, Santos’s reputation did not suffer, and he continued to receive job offers.
This is particularly telling about the culture of complicity and tolerance within San Francisco’s building inspection sector.
That Santos and Murphy shared the former distinction of being presidents of the Building Inspection Commission is a reflection of the pervasive issues within the system.
The fallout from Santos’s actions is likely to be far-reaching and is still not fully realized.
Projects executed without proper oversight could potentially reveal hidden dangers lurking within homes across the city.
In a shocking exchange, an inspector approached Santos while he was working near a freeway sign.
When alerted to the inherent dangers of digging in that proximity, Santos allegedly responded with a grin, boasting about his past work on the signs themselves.
This cavalier attitude encapsulates how Santos operated: with a remarkable confidence that eluded the regulatory checks.
For those affected by Santos’s schemes and those he misled, the settlement may feel more like a band-aid on a gaping wound.
San Francisco’s DBI and the broader regulatory system must grapple with the consequences of years of enabling corruption, ensuring that such systemic failings do not repeat in the future.
As the dust settles from Santos’s time in the local engineering scene, one can only hope that lessons are learned and safety measures strengthened to prevent similar incidents from occurring again.
image source from：missionlocal
