by WorldTribune Staff, February 1, 2024
California Democrat Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s 55-year-old son Paul Pelosi Jr. has managed to dodge federal charges for the seventh time after he was linked to a money laundering and mail fraud scheme in San Francisco, reports say.
Federal prosecutors charged two alleged fraudsters, Bill Garlock and Gina Rodriguez, who were involved in shady dealings over a flop house that Pelosi Jr. claimed to own, DailyMail.com reported on Jan. 30. Garlock and Rodriguez have struck a plea deal and are slated to be sentenced in March.
Pelosi Jr., who was identified by documents reviewed by DailyMail.com as paying bribes to get building permits on his Mission District flop house, was not charged.
Revolver News noted that the charges in the most recent case linked to Pelosi Jr. “are juicy: 15 counts of money laundering and mail fraud, topped off with a sneaky plot to pocket $400,000 from investors under the guise of pouring it into the 24th Street property. Instead, that cash went straight to personal splurges. Pelosi Jr.’s connection to this crime is a mix of money and personal ties, and they’re strong enough to make any sane person wonder if being the offspring of political royalty has been his (and Hunter’s) get-out-of-jail-free card. Meanwhile, a J6 prisoner gets the book thrown at them for spending one lousy minute inside the US Capitol. So much for the land of the free, huh?”
Garlock and Rodriguez allegedly duped investors into fronting well over $1 million for supposed real estate ventures, but instead used the cash for their own rent, loan repayments, credit card bills, and even “horse-related expenses,” San Francisco federal prosecutors say.
A 2022 indictment of the two says they got money from investors “by means of materially false and fraudulent pretenses, representations, and promises, and by means of concealment of material facts, including through the use of half-truths.”
Among the property investments they pitched was the renovation of a dilapidated mixed-use building in the Mission District of San Francisco – with a troubled past of code violations and squalid conditions for its hapless tenants.
A previous investigation by DailyMail.com revealed Pelosi Jr. had deep ties to the building, on the corner of Utah Street and 24th Street. He claimed he owned 20%, and was involved in a 2017 bribery scheme to get permits for the property that led to the imprisonment of a city official and an engineering consultant after an FBI bust.
“The U.S. Justice Department has a history of sheltering and protecting the family members of powerful political elites,” said Seamus Bruner, vice president of research at the transparency think tank Government Accountability Institute.
Bruner noted that Pelosi Jr. has been linked to seven federal cases, without any allegations leveled against him.
“We’ve seen it time and again with the Clintons and the Bidens. There can be no question that a last name like Pelosi is going to carry weight among California-based prosecutors who want to advance their careers at the federal level,” Bruner said.
This is the seventh federal case linked to the former House Speaker’s son.
DailyMail.com has previously revealed:
• Pelosi Jr. joined the board of a biofuel company after it defrauded investors according to an SEC ruling, and whose CEO was convicted after bribing Georgia officials.
• Pelosi Jr. was president of an environmental investment firm that turned out to be a front for two convicted fraudsters.
• He joined a lithium mining company and received millions of shares, allegedly issued as part of a massive $164million fraud.
• He was vice president of a company previously embroiled in an investigation of scam calls that targeted senior citizens.
• He has close business ties with a man accused by the Department of Justice of running a fake UN charity that stole investors’ money.
• A medical company Pelosi Jr. worked for tested drugs on people without FDA authorization, according to an FDA investigation.
• A permit expeditor and a city official were imprisoned over a bribery scheme of cash for permits, with Pelosi Jr. as one of their clients.
Pelosi Jr., who was not charged or convicted in relation to any of the cases, did not respond to a request for comment.
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