A well-connected San Francisco Democratic activist and Board of Supervisors candidate is watching his political support collapse after a former acquaintance accused him of grabbing and squeezing the man's genitals at a house party in 2020.
Manny Yekutiel, a cafe owner, fundraiser, and fixture in Bay Area Democratic politics, denies the allegation. But California Attorney General Rob Bonta, San Francisco Supervisor Myrna Melgar, and U.S. Rep. Lateefah Simon have already pulled their endorsements. The accuser filed a police report, wore a police-issued recording device during a later confrontation with Yekutiel, and has now gone public with his account.
The story matters beyond San Francisco because Yekutiel is not some marginal figure. He is the kind of operator national Democrats cultivate, a Los Angeles native who built a Mission District cafe that doubled as a progressive gathering place, hosting everyone from Kamala Harris and Gov. Gavin Newsom to former First Lady Jill Biden. His endorsement list for the Castro neighborhood supervisor's seat read like a Democratic donor-class phone tree: U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, Assemblymembers Matt Haney and Catherine Stefani, and former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown.
Now a handful of those names have quietly walked away.
Brad Chapin, a city gardener and progressive political activist, told the New York Post that Yekutiel approached him at a February 2020 house party while visibly sweating, grabbed him, and refused to let go.
"He grabbed me, and I was trying to get away. He wouldn't let me go. He stuck one of his hands down my pants and grabbed me and was squeezing me and intentionally causing pain."
Chapin described the encounter as deliberately degrading. He called it "bizarre" and said Yekutiel "literally had me by the testicles. It was intentionally sexually demeaning."
After the party, Chapin told friends about the alleged assault. Text messages he sent to those friends were later reviewed by both the San Francisco Chronicle and the San Francisco Standard, which first detailed the allegation publicly. Chapin filed a police report in April, the year is not explicitly confirmed in available reporting but is implied to be 2020 by the timeline of events.
San Francisco police then issued Chapin a recording device to wear during a confrontation with Yekutiel. During that encounter, Yekutiel denied the incident. The confrontation produced no useful evidence, and the investigation was marked "inactive," the Chronicle reported.
That outcome, a case filed, a device issued, a denial recorded, a file shelved, is familiar to anyone who has watched how sexual assault allegations move through the criminal justice system. The absence of a prosecution does not equal exoneration, and it does not equal proof. It means the system ran its course and stopped short of a conclusion.
Yekutiel has not ignored the accusation. In a text to the Post, he offered a carefully worded denial:
"I take these allegations seriously, and I've said directly to the person who made them that he deserves to be heard. But I know what's true for me: I didn't do this."
He pointed to the police investigation's outcome, telling the Post that "the police investigated and closed the matter without pursuing it further." That framing is technically accurate, the case was marked inactive, but it elides the fact that the recorded confrontation simply failed to produce evidence, not that investigators cleared him.
Then came the pivot to politics. Yekutiel told the Post: "What I will say is campaigns can get ugly, and I think that's part of what's happening here." The implication was plain. His chief rival for the Castro neighborhood Board of Supervisors seat is Gary McCoy, a public health advocate and former top aide to Rep. Nancy Pelosi. Yekutiel appeared to suggest that the timing of Chapin's public accusation was connected to the race.
In a social media video posted Monday afternoon, Yekutiel acknowledged his participation in San Francisco's queer nightlife scene but insisted he had always tried to respect boundaries. "I have gone out, I've partied, and I've been part of the city's queer nightlife scene, but I've always tried to respect people's boundaries and treat people with respect as best I can," he said.
The pattern here, take the allegation seriously in one sentence, deny it in the next, then suggest it is politically motivated, has become a familiar playbook. It is not unique to any party, but it lands differently when the accused belongs to a political movement that has spent years insisting survivors must be believed.
Whatever voters ultimately decide about the allegation, the political damage is already real. The New York Post reported that Attorney General Rob Bonta, Supervisor Myrna Melgar, and Rep. Lateefah Simon all rescinded their endorsements after the San Francisco Standard published Chapin's account. The Standard's reporting noted that "a handful" of endorsers pulled back, though only those three were named.
The speed of the departures is telling. These are not marginal figures hedging their bets. Bonta is the state's top law enforcement officer. Simon is a sitting member of Congress. Melgar serves on the very board Yekutiel hopes to join. When allies at that level cut ties before a candidate has even had his day in any formal proceeding, it suggests the political calculation is already made, the risk of standing with Yekutiel outweighs the cost of walking away.
Whether that calculation reflects genuine concern for the accuser or simple self-preservation is an open question. But the result is the same: Yekutiel's campaign has gone from well-funded and well-connected to politically radioactive in a matter of days.
The episode echoes a broader pattern among Democratic candidates facing serious personal allegations. Maine Senate nominee Graham Platner faced a sexual assault allegation that triggered a similar chain reaction within his own party.
McCoy's campaign moved quickly to distance itself from any suggestion it had orchestrated Chapin's decision to go public. Catie Stewart, McCoy's spokesperson, called that suggestion "totally false" and insulting to survivors of sexual assault.
Stewart added: "The truth is that Brad's bravery in coming forward is remarkable, and Gary stands with him and believes him."
That statement does two things at once. It shields McCoy from the appearance of dirty campaigning, and it plants McCoy firmly on the accuser's side, a positioning that carries obvious political benefit in a San Francisco Democratic primary. Whether McCoy's team had any role in the timing remains unproven, but Yekutiel's suggestion that "campaigns can get ugly" hangs in the air without evidence to support it.
In other recent cases, Democratic leadership has moved swiftly to demand withdrawal when candidates face allegations of this nature. So far, no comparable pressure has surfaced publicly against Yekutiel, perhaps because a local supervisor's race does not command the same national attention as a Senate contest.
What makes this case noteworthy beyond the allegation itself is the infrastructure Yekutiel built. Manny's Cafe in the Mission District was not just a coffee shop. It was a Democratic staging ground, a place where national figures came to raise money, rally volunteers, and burnish their progressive credentials. Harris, Newsom, and Jill Biden all passed through its doors.
That kind of access does not happen by accident. It is built through years of relationship management, donor cultivation, and political loyalty. Yekutiel's endorsement roster reflected the payoff: a candidate for a single city supervisor seat carrying the backing of a U.S. senator, a lieutenant governor, and the state attorney general.
The question now is whether that network holds or whether the same instinct for self-preservation that built it will tear it apart. Already, the exits suggest the latter. Other Democratic rising stars have watched their political networks evaporate once personal conduct became a liability.
Several important questions remain unresolved. No named witness to the alleged incident at the February 2020 party has surfaced in available reporting. The full contents of Chapin's text messages to friends, reviewed by both the Chronicle and the Standard, have not been published. The police investigation's "inactive" status leaves the matter in a gray zone: not prosecuted, not dismissed, not formally closed in a way that offers either party a definitive answer.
Whether Chapin suffered any physical injury beyond what he described is not addressed in the reporting. And the election date for the Castro neighborhood supervisor's seat, the race that gives this story its immediate political stakes, is not specified in the available accounts.
What is clear is the political fallout. A candidate who once attracted the endorsement of the state's attorney general now cannot hold it. A man who built a cafe that hosted a vice president now faces a public accusation he cannot make disappear, no matter how many times he points to an inactive police file. Democrats facing personal scandals have repeatedly discovered that the party's stated principles about believing accusers apply most forcefully when the accused is politically expendable.
For years, progressive leaders in San Francisco and beyond have built their brands on the insistence that accusers of sexual misconduct deserve to be heard and believed. That principle was not presented as situational. It was not offered with a caveat for well-connected cafe owners who host the right fundraisers.
Now it faces a direct test. Brad Chapin has done what the movement asks: he told friends, he filed a report, he cooperated with police, and he went public. Manny Yekutiel has denied the allegation and suggested political motives. The police file sits inactive.
The endorsers who fled did not wait for a resolution. They did the math and moved on. Scandals involving Democratic candidates have a way of clarifying who is protected and who is not.
The voters of San Francisco's Castro neighborhood will ultimately decide what weight to give a five-year-old allegation, an inactive investigation, and a candidate's denial. But the party that made "believe all survivors" a rallying cry now gets to show whether it meant it, or whether it was always just a slogan reserved for the other side's problems.
