SF SAFE Director Kyra Worthy arrested for fraud

The logo of the San Francisco District Attorney (DA). (San Francisco District Attorney via Bay City News)

SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) — The former director of a San Francisco-based nonprofit organization has been arrested for allegedly misusing public funds and submitting fraudulent invoices to the city, the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office said. Kyra Worthy, 49, of Richmond, the former executive director of the nonprofit SF SAFE, was arrested on 34 felony counts.

The charges, according to prosecutors, included embezzlement of public funds, filing fraudulent invoices with a city agency, theft from SF SAFE, wage theft from employees, failure to pay withheld employee taxes and writing checks with insufficient funds to defraud a bank.

Worthy is accused of illegally embezzling more than $700,000 during her tenure as head of the nonprofit. Worthy was arrested Tuesday by investigators from the SFDA District Attorney’s Office.

SF SAFE was a long-standing nonprofit organization that worked with the San Francisco Police Department, according to the district attorney.

“Due to SF SAFE’s relationship with the SFPD, the SFPD has asked the District Attorney’s Office to conduct this investigation,” the DA’s office said.

As part of the investigation, prosecutors said they executed 25 search warrants, seized hundreds of thousands of pages of financial and business documents and interviewed more than two dozen witnesses.

According to an affidavit cited by the prosecutor, Worthy committed one count of grand theft by embezzlement by “unlawfully and fraudulently” using more than $100,000 of SF SAFE funds for her own purposes. In 2019 and 2020, Worthy allegedly spent more than $90,000 of the nonprofit’s funds on home care for her parents in North Carolina.

The affidavit, prosecutors said, also details how Worthy spent SF SAFE funds “lavishly” on parties, events, interior designers, furniture and travel. The affidavit goes on to say that when Worthy was hired in early 2018, the nonprofit had cash reserves of over $300,000.

“Although SF SAFE received millions of dollars in public and private funding over the next five years, Ms. Worthy’s thefts and mismanagement left the 48-year-old charity with no assets and ceasing operations in January 2024,” the prosecutor said.

An investigation also found that some of the money Worthy allegedly stole came from “a substantial donation” to SF SAFE made by someone who had a “professional relationship” with San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins. District Attorney Jenkins has recused herself from the investigation and potential prosecution in the case out of “an abundance of caution.”