San Mateo County Community College District reaches $20 million settlement in Ron Galatolo case

The dispute revolves around accusations that Galatolo received expensive gifts, like trips and concert tickets, from the construction firms, and in exchange prioritized college construction contracts whose firms and their principals provided those gifts. Galatolo has long maintained his innocence, something he said previously that the mistrial proved, and said the gifts were reciprocal exchanges between friends and thus did not require disclosure.

Three of the four companies involved in the civil settlement with the district — Allana Buick & Bers Inc., BCA Architects & Engineers, and McCarthy Building Companies Inc. — did not immediately respond to request for comment.

In a statement, an attorney for Robert A. Bothman Construction, a company also involved in the suit, said that the firm had consistently delivered best-in-class projects for the district and the case was never about the quality of work. Nevertheless, they were pleased to move forward and put the suit behind them, per the statement. 

"This case was also not about any actual wrongdoing by Bothman, but by the District’s own employees. The District voluntarily dismissed, pre-settlement, all claims alleging any wrongdoing by Bothman," attorney Christopher Frost said in the statement. "We were sorry to see the District try to recover anything from Bothman under these circumstances—having done nothing but deliver the quality of work the District requested and paid for." 

The $20 million figure encompasses the total payout from all four companies, who each paid varying figures to the district, Niall McCarthy of Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy said. McCarthy Building Companies Inc., for example, paid $10.5 million, Niall McCarthy said. Because the suit was settled, it did not go to a jury trial, and no verdict on the accusations was reached.

“The district wanted to ensure it got a fair recovery,” Niall McCarthy said. “Once it did that, it was quite pleased with the result and happy to end the litigation.”

Since a resolution has been found, Niall McCarthy said he expected this to be the last chapter in the Galatolo saga.

“This outcome reinforces the District’s unwavering commitment to protecting public funds entrusted to us by our taxpayers,” SMCCCD Trustee John Pimentel said in a June 26 press release from Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy. He added that the district has updated its transparency practices, including the hiring of an internal auditor and installation of a fraud tip line.

From Galatolo’s perspective, the construction firms’ decision to settle with the district was a business decision to move on from the conflict, he said. He maintained they did good work on building new infrastructure for the community colleges and were innocent of the allegations.

“Those construction firms did amazing work for the district. I mean, just look at the buildings they constructed, look at the work that they did,” Galatolo said. “Nothing was found guilty in respect to me … the same would have been true if we went to trial with them.”

In terms of his own criminal case, Galatolo said he’s requesting several of the charges be reduced from felonies to misdemeanors and believes a new trial should take place on several of the perjury charges.

The investigation and accusations of wrongdoing against Galatolo began in 2019, when former Vice Chancellor Eugene Whitlock filed a whistleblower complaint alleging a laundry list of misconduct by Galatolo.

When the criminal investigation was announced, trustees placed Galatolo on administrative leave from the chancellor emeritus position created when plans were announced for him to depart from the chief administration post in 2019. He was later dismissed completely in 2021. He was arrested at SFO following his return from vacation in 2022.

The District Attorney’s Office announced charges against Galatolo on April 7, 2022, alleging fraudulent reporting of charitable donations, steering district construction projects as chancellor, failure to disclose gifts from construction firms who had business with the district, and underreporting the purchase price of luxury cars.

Jose Nuñez, former vice chancellor of facilities for the San Mateo County Community College District, was also charged with 15 felonies. He pleaded no contest to two felony counts of using the community college district’s resources for political purposes, including the election campaign of district board candidate Tom Mohr, and a bond measure providing $388 million in funding for college district capital projects between 2018-20.

As part of the plea, he testified as a witness and the DA’s Office dismissed the remaining charges.

Note to readers: This story has been updated with a statement from Bothman.