Mark Danaj, the former Fremont city manager, walks into the Rene C. Davidson Courthouse on Tuesday, June 27, 2023, in Oakland, Calif. Danaj is facing criminal embezzlement charges. (Aric Crabb/Bay Area News Group)
A former Fremont city manager is expected to spend 90 days in jail and repay more than $300,000 to his former employer under a plea deal announced Thursday in a yearslong fraud case.
Mark Danaj pleaded guilty to obtaining money under false pretenses — a felony — after authorities say he made a habit of using his city credit card to pay for thousands of dollars in personal expenses.
Appearing Thursday morning in a dark blue suit, Danaj showed little emotion as a judge read the terms of the plea deal, which included the dismissal of two other felony counts.
Along with serving nearly three months in jail, the deal requires Danaj to repay nearly $317,000 in restitution — almost all of which is to mostly reimburse the city for a controversial severance package that he received upon leaving the city in September 2021. He also agreed to serve two years on probation, a term that could be halved if he repays all of the restitution within a year.
Danaj is expected to be sentenced on April 18.
“We think this is a fair resolution,” said prosecutor Alexandra Grayner, in announcing the terms of the deal in court Thursday. She declined to comment further after the hearing.
After the hearing, Danaj’s attorney said that the former city manager “wanted to get on with his life” from a case that had dragged on nearly two years. He added that the plea deal was in Danaj’s best interest, given that he faced the prospect of up to three years in prison if convicted at trial.
“Since day one, he’s wanted to take responsibility for the use of the credit card,” said the attorney, Dan O’Malley.
Danaj was originally charged in late March 2022 with embezzlement and misappropriation of public funds after authorities said he used his city-issued credit card from December 2019 through March 2021 for travel, medical services, food delivery and Apple products.
The charges came about six months after Danaj’s tenure at the city ended under a thick legal cloud, with Danaj having been arrested on suspicion of domestic violence just weeks earlier. Prosecutors later dismissed that case, citing a lack of evidence.
At the time of his resignation, Danaj negotiated a payout from the city of Fremont worth more than $360,000, which included 10.5 months of severance pay, along with tens of thousands of dollars in health care benefits and unused general leave time.
Yet the criminal case against him slowed to a crawl until spring 2023, when Grayner expressed shock in legal filings at word that Danaj had moved out of the state and had begun taking classes Italy to become an internationally-trained chef. It was part of a mid-life career change that included $80,000 in courses at the Culinary Institute of America — a private college billing itself as the “standard for excellence in professional culinary education,” according to its website.
“Defendant is in Italy?!” Grayner wrote in a May court filing. She ripped the “luxurious” Italian getaway as nothing more than “a pretextual excuse to gallivant around Europe while he awaits trial.
“Despite facing felony charges for embezzlement and misappropriation of public funds in Alameda County,” Grayner wrote, “Mr. Danaj appears to be living his best life ‘studying’ Italian wines, cheese and capellini.”
In June, prosecutors charged him with a third felony — obtaining money, labor or property by false pretenses. It was the charge that he ultimately pleaded guilty to on Thursday. The plea agreement includes restitution of a few hundred dollars for which he had yet to reimburse the city for his personal expenses.
Check back for updates to this developing story.
Originally published at Jakob Rodgers