The former Fremont city manager who was ordered to repay a six-figure severance check amid allegations of fraud was recently reprimanded and kicked out of a local government association, the organization announced this week.
Mark Danaj, 55, was censured and expelled from the International City/County Management Association, a professional group that offers training and guidance to thousands of city leaders and managers across the nation.
The announcement Tuesday came as he wrapped up a 44-day stint at Santa Rita Jail after pleading guilty in March to obtaining money under false pretenses, a felony. His original 90-day jail sentence was effectively halved through a California law affecting many non-violent cases.
Danaj now must fork over nearly $317,000 to the city of Fremont, largely to reimburse the city for a severance check he received while leaving his job in 2021.
Danaj’s attorney, Dan O’Malley, declined to comment Tuesday.
Authorities claimed Danaj used a city credit card to pay for thousands of dollars in personal expenses — including travel, medical services, food delivery and Apple products — during parts of his three-year tenure with the city, which ended under a thick legal cloud in 2021.
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Former District Attorney Nancy O’Malley initially filed embezzlement and fraud charges against him in March 2022. Yet little happened in his case until spring 2023, when prosecutors under District Attorney Pamela Price reacted with incredulity at learning that Danaj had moved to Texas, enrolled in an $80,000 cooking program at the Culinary Institute of America and flown to Europe for a 15-week course at the Castello di Ugento, a centuries-old castle that’s now home to a five-star hotel.
All of that happened while he still faced felony charges here.
Prosecutors later filed a third felony fraud charge against Danaj, alleging that he fraudulently concealed his misuse of a city-issued credit card to land that six-figure severance check while on his way out of the city.
As part of a plea deal announced earlier this year, prosecutors agreed to drop two of the charges. A judge later said that Danaj could see his two-year probation sentence halved if he pays the entire restitution bill within a year. Yet that scenario appears unlikely, Danaj’s attorney said in April, given how the former city manager is now an “indigent” college student.
The judge who sentenced Danaj forbade him from ever holding public office again in California. The International City/County Management Association said it made its decision to censure and expel Danaj after concluding he violated the group’s ethics code.
