By Madilynne Medina, News ReporterJuly 8, 2026 (SFGate.com)
Manny Yekutiel and presidential candidate Tom Steyer during Steyer’s appearance at Manny’s in San Francisco on Wednesday, July 17, 2019.Scott Strazzante/SF Chronicle via Getty Images
Editor’s note: This story contains descriptions of alleged sexual assault. If you or someone you know needs help, please call the National Sexual Assault Telephone Hotline at 800-656-4673 in the U.S.
A prominent San Francisco activist and Mission District cafe owner is facing sexual assault allegations that have quickly eroded support for his campaign for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.
Manny Yekutiel, who owns the popular cafe and events venue named after himself on 16th Street in San Francisco, is accused of aggressively groping a local activist during a party at a home in 2020, the San Francisco Standard first reported. Brad Joseph Chapin, a nonprofit worker and former Harvey Milk LGBTQ Democratic Club board member, came forward with the allegations against Yekutiel and filed a police report in April.
In an interview with SFGATE, Chapin said he was at a party at a home in February 2020 when Yekutiel allegedly assaulted him. He also detailed the allegations in the police report filed in April and viewed by SFGATE on Monday.
Chapin told SFGATE that when he first saw Yekutiel sitting alone at the party, he didn’t immediately recognize him because Yekutiel looked like he “hadn’t slept in several days.” Chapin said Yekutiel then approached him and allegedly stuck his hand down Chapin’s pants, “forcibly” grabbing Chapin’s genitalia, causing intense pain and squeezing harder as Chapin tried to escape.
“Every time I tried to get away, he yanked and pulled and it was horrible,” Chapin told SFGATE. He said he only knew Yekutiel through mutual friends and was startled and frightened by the alleged assault, which he described as “violent.”
In a Monday Instagram video statement, Yekutiel denied the allegations, saying he was accused of “pretty terrible things.”
“One, whenever someone accuses someone of something like this, they deserve to be heard and taken seriously. … I felt really bad that he felt this way, and I would never want to cause pain or hurt to anyone,” Yekutiel said. “But the other thing I know to be true is that I didn’t do this to him. 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 as I can.”
Yekutiel also denied the allegations in a statement that Connor Skelly, a spokesperson for Yekutiel’s campaign for District 8 supervisor, shared with SFGATE last week.
“What is being described did not happen. When he reached out to me, I told him directly that it didn’t happen. He filed a police report, the police investigated and took no further action,” Yekutiel’s statement read. “They said they didn’t even need to interview me. His account has changed more than once since. And now, after more than six years, he’s raising it publicly for the first time, just as I’ve entered this race. There’s nothing here. I did not do this.”
SFGATE reached out multiple times to the San Francisco Police Department requesting further details about the police report and the investigation into Chapin’s allegations, including contacting multiple spokespeople and sending messages via phone and email. None of our inquiries yielded responses from either spokesperson Robert Rueca or spokesperson Evan Sernoffsky despite repeated messages to each specifically. According to a May 1 email from an SFPD investigator to Chapin that Chapin shared with SFGATE, the investigator was unable to “build enough [probable] cause to move forward with criminal charges.” The case “will remain open but be in an inactive status pending discovery of additional evidence,” the investigator wrote.
Chapin said he didn’t report the alleged assault for years because he feared no one would believe him and because Yekutiel was well known in San Francisco’s political circles.
“I was so scared that people wouldn’t believe me. I feel like 90% of the difficulty for coming forward about something like this, if there’s no video evidence of it, is that you’re gonna be accused of lying,” he said. “… It took everything in me not to say something, but also, I was so scared of the amount of power and influence he had, like his word against mine.”
Chapin’s breaking point, he said, was after he learned that Yekutiel is one of four candidates running in the November election for supervisor of District 8, an area that includes the Castro, Noe Valley, Diamond Heights, Mission Dolores and Cole Valley. (The incumbent supervisor, Rafael Mandelman, is unable to run for reelection due to term limits.) When Yekutiel announced his candidacy in September, Chapin said he “shut down.”
“I could barely talk, unable to function, like I barely got out of bed, except for the things I needed to for a couple of weeks,” he said. “… If I didn’t come forward, like, I would just be sitting worried.”
Ivy Lee, the director of the Mayor’s Office for Victims’ Rights, told the SF Standard that she spoke with Chapin and encouraged him to come forward with the report. She told the outlet the claims appeared to be credible and said she disagreed with Yekutiel’s criticism of the timing of Chapin’s allegations. Lee did not respond to SFGATE’s repeated requests for comment.
According to the SF Standard’s report, Lee also called Yekutiel’s response a “tired and predictable playbook for alleged perpetrators,” saying that they “blame the victim, shame the victim” and deny allegations.
Chapin pushed back on the implication that his allegations could be politically motivated.
“This has nothing to do with his politics, and if it wasn’t for this happening, for all I know, I could have been supporting him,” Chapin said. “… There’s no way on earth that I would subject myself to this amount of humiliation and embarrassment if it wasn’t true.”
Yet in his Monday statement, Yekutiel again suggested the accusations are related to his campaign.
“I do think that what’s happening here is an attempt to assassinate my character,” he said. “I was told at the beginning of this that politics in our city could get pretty nasty. And I definitely know that that’s true. And I see that now.”
Yekutiel has been a close ally of San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie, even before Lurie was elected to the San Francisco office. Yekutiel and Lurie co-founded a nonprofit initiative in 2023 called the Civic Joy Fund, CBS Bay Area previously reported, which is a program created to help clean and revitalize the city’s streets post-pandemic.
On July 2, Lurie told the SF Standard that he has “no plans” to endorse a candidate for the District 8 supervisorial seat.
Yekutiel’s cafe, Manny’s, has also become a center for civic gatherings, such as election watch parties and keynote speeches. However, the recent allegations have caused some people to withdraw from their appearances at Manny’s and rescind their endorsements for his campaign.
Jason Galisatus, a spokesperson for state Senate candidate Christine Pelosi (daughter of House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi), told SFGATE that Pelosi withdrew from an event at Yekutiel’s San Francisco cafe because of the allegations but did not provide further comment. According to the SF Standard, Rudy Gonzalez, San Francisco Building & Construction Trades Council secretary-treasurer, also withdrew from the event for the same reason.
The offices of Rep. Lateefah Simon, who represents the East Bay, Attorney General Rob Bonta and District 7 Supervisor Myrna Melgar all confirmed to SFGATE that they have pulled their endorsements of Yekutiel.
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“I was not previously aware of the sexual assault allegations against Manny Yekutiel. It is incredibly important that victims in any situation have the ability to come forward and are supported after,” Simon said in a statement shared with SFGATE. “Following this news, I have since retracted my endorsement.”
Chapin said his main hope is that people ultimately believe his account and that people who have experienced sexual assault feel more comfortable coming forward in the future.
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“What does justice look like for me has nothing to do with Manny,” he said. “What justice looks like for me is just to genuinely be believed.”
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July 8, 2026
News Reporter
Madilynne Medina is a news reporter for SFGATE. Born and raised in the Bay Area, she earned a B.S. in journalism from San Jose State, where she served as executive editor for the Spartan Daily, and has also worked at NBC Bay Area. When she’s not out in the field reporting, she’s likely trying a new workout or listening to The Weeknd. You can contact her at madilynne.medina@sfgate.com.
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