Top image: Fiesta Hall, San Mateo County Event Center. Photo: Pedro Xing / CC0 via Wikimedia Commons

A former longtime San Francisco 49ers executive and his childhood friend remain in San Mateo County Jail on $750,000 bail each, charged in an alleged scheme that prosecutors say diverted about $1.4 million from county-subsidized construction projects at the San Mateo County Event Center.

The allegations

James Cunningham Mercurio, 55, of Vacaville, was hired by the Event Center in 2024 as a construction project manager to oversee three projects, according to District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe’s office, as reported by CBS San Francisco. Prosecutors allege he steered contracts to a childhood friend, a 66-year-old Los Altos man identified as Michael Joseph McLennan, who then passed part of the money back to Mercurio.

Two of the projects, the Bay Stay RV program and new bathrooms at Cyprus Hall, each received $1 million from the county, County Executive Mike Callagy told the San Mateo Daily Journal, according to the Bay Area Brief.

The case began when a construction company or subcontractors reported they were not being paid. The Palo Alto Daily Post reported that when the county attorney reviewed the project’s performance bond, the guarantee that a contractor will finish the job, Wagstaffe said it turned out to be fake and forged. A grand jury heard about two weeks of evidence before indicting both men, the Brief reported.

Both pleaded not guilty. At an Oct. 12 hearing, the judge denied defense requests to lower bail, and a hearing to set pretrial and jury trial dates is scheduled for Nov. 16, CBS reported. Mercurio’s attorney, Brian Getz, told Bay City News he is confident his client is innocent and noted he has never been convicted of a crime, according to the Brief. The charges are allegations, and both men are presumed innocent.

Mercurio spent nearly 30 years as a 49ers executive before being laid off in 2023, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

A note on the record

Readers comparing coverage will find that basic facts vary by outlet. The San Francisco Chronicle, Bay City News and the Palo Alto Daily Post spell the co-defendant’s surname McLennan; CBS San Francisco, Hoodline and, according to the Brief, the San Mateo Daily Journal spell it McClennan. We use McLennan, the spelling most outlets use, but could not confirm it against a court document.

Reports of the charges also differ. CBS described 40 counts of commercial bribery between the two men, the San Francisco Chronicle reported 20 commercial bribery counts against each, and Wagstaffe told the Daily Journal that Mercurio faces 40 counts and his co-defendant 19, according to the Brief. One outlet reversed the two men’s ages and hometowns. The South Bay Chronicle will update this story as court records become available.

The county steps in

The bigger institutional question is oversight. Callagy said the county is opening its own financial investigation and will run Event Center capital projects itself for the foreseeable future. “I don’t know how the individuals were hired, what processes were used,” he told the Daily Journal, as quoted by the Brief. Hoodline noted that the county’s public description of the Event Center board does not describe a separate review process for county-funded capital projects, and that no audit or recovery of funds has been announced.

An Event Center spokesperson said the board and staff were “shocked and disappointed” and are cooperating with prosecutors, the Brief reported.

The long view

The Event Center operates in a gray zone common in California local government. It is a fair association with its own board, spending public money that comes from the county. That arrangement gives it flexibility, but it can also leave no single office clearly responsible for checking the work.

If the allegations hold up, the scheme was not uncovered by an audit. It surfaced because subcontractors went unpaid and a bond did not check out. That is a reminder that much public accountability still depends on someone noticing something is wrong. Tools that can verify bonds, match contract payments to the work performed, and flag contracts that repeatedly go to the same vendor are inexpensive compared with $1.4 million. The county’s audit will show whether it plans to adopt them, or simply take control of the projects until attention moves on.

Sources: CBS San Francisco (Oct. 13, 2026); Bay Area Brief, summarizing Bay City News and the San Mateo Daily Journal (Oct. 11, 2026); Palo Alto Daily Post (Oct. 15, 2026); San Francisco Chronicle; Hoodline (Oct. 10, 2026).