STOCKTON -- Attorney David Chiu of the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office announced on July 23, 2024, that Jose Badillo—co-owner of the tow company Auto Towing, which was recently banned from bidding on or receiving contracts with the city as a result of illegally towing cars and scamming their owners—is accused of six felonies related to criminal welfare fraud (Superior Court of California, County of San Francisco, Case # CRI-23016386). As outlined in a KQED news article, Badillo, in multiple alleged welfare fraud schemes orchestrated by him and his wife, Abigail Fuentes, defrauded several benefits programs, including when he reportedly received public benefits (approved by Fuentes, who worked as a senior eligibility worker at San Francisco’s Human Services Agency) while his and Fuentes’s tow truck companies earned over $2 million in gross annual income.
“It’s still pending,” said Sawyer to KQED in reference to the criminal case. “All the facts are still being ascertained. You know, there’s a lot of discovery, there’s a lot of dynamics at play here, and I think people need to keep an open mind.”
Badillo is furthermore named in multiple civil fraud cases alongside Fuentes, including an ongoing 2021 case against Fuentes, in which allegedly Badillo, after being permanently banned by the California attorney general in 2017 from operating a towing business in the state, transferred ownership of the business to Fuentes and then continued running it.
Related to the debarment of Auto Towing, the company illegally towed at least six vehicles from a bank parking lot without first gaining the bank’s authorization to tow from its property, as required by law. Badillo and Fuentes own two other towing companies: Jose’s Towing and Specialty Towing and Recovery.
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