The former wife of a high-profile California city manager went to see her in jail following an alleged yacht break-in, but departed without paying the $50,000 bail required for her release.
Elaine Forbes, Sausalito’s city manager, was being held at Marin County Jail when Angela Calvillo, clerk of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, visited her on Monday, the New York Post reported.
Forbes had been taken into custody two days earlier on suspicion of felony burglary.
Investigators said Forbes, 53, was discovered inside a yacht that did not belong to her, Marin County Sheriff’s Lieutenant Domenick Yazzolino told the Marin Independent Journal.
According to the county’s public booking records, sheriff’s deputies arrested Forbes at 6.50am Saturday at Sausalito Yacht Harbor before booking her into custody at 8.30am.
Marin County Sheriff’s Sgt Adam Schermerhorn told the Daily Mail that Forbes was still in custody Tuesday afternoon, with bail set at $50,000.
Forbes started her $275,000-a-year role as Sausalito city manager on July 1, after spending nine years leading the Port of San Francisco, the Journal reported.
Just two days before the arrest, the Sausalito City Council approved a leave of absence for Forbes and appointed Assistant City Manager Brandon Phipps to serve as acting city manager, according to an official city statement.
The leave was scheduled to run through September 8, according to a separate city statement obtained by the Marin Independent Journal.
Elaine Forbes began her $275,000-a-year job as Sausalito city manager on July 1, less than three weeks before her arrest
Elaine Forbes and Angela Calvillo spent years as a prominent couple in San Francisco government
Although jail records listed Forbes as a San Francisco resident, she had recently bought and moved into a floating home just north of Sausalito, the Journal reported.
The visit came as Forbes’ family worked with mental health professionals and attorneys to help her during what they described as a mental health crisis, according to the Post.
Sources told the Post that Forbes and Calvillo remained on good terms after their separation.
Calvillo did not post Forbes’ bail, according to the Post. The outlet reported that Forbes and her legal representative decided not to seek her immediate release while the situation was assessed.
Forbes and Calvillo were once a prominent couple in San Francisco government.
Forbes led the Port of San Francisco while Calvillo served as clerk of the city’s Board of Supervisors.
The women separated in September 2022 and Calvillo filed for dissolution of their marriage in January 2023, according to court records reviewed by the Daily Mail.
A property agreement obtained by the Post divided two homes, a BMW and hundreds of thousands of dollars in assets.
Forbes retained their $1.7 million home in San Francisco’s Dolores Heights neighborhood, while Calvillo kept a $554,000 lake house in Auburn and the BMW.
Angela Calvillo has spent decades working at the center of San Francisco politics as clerk of the Board of Supervisors
Forbes spent nine years leading the Port of San Francisco, where she oversaw hundreds of employees and waterfront projects
Calvillo agreed to reimburse Forbes for the $90,000 she had contributed toward the lake house and pay her another $5,000 in expenses.
Forbes agreed to make a $242,500 equalization payment to Calvillo after the assets and reimbursements were calculated.
Court records reviewed by the Daily Mail showed that their marital status ended on June 28, 2024. A judgment dissolving their marriage was entered that October.
Forbes left her San Francisco home in a ‘disoriented state’ Thursday, family spokesman Sam Singer told the San Francisco Chronicle.
Marin County Sheriff’s Sgt Adam Schermerhorn told the Daily Mail that a former coworker who had last seen Forbes that day reported her missing on July 17.
Deputies worked with San Francisco police, Sausalito police and other regional agencies to find Forbes, Schermerhorn said. She was also entered into the Missing and Unidentified Persons System.
Forbes was located early July 18, removed from the system and arrested on suspicion of felony burglary.
Singer told the Chronicle that Forbes’ phone and wallet were found outside an addiction-recovery facility in Sausalito.
Schermerhorn said Forbes entered at least one vessel and was reported to have manipulated levers and pressed buttons inside its helm.
She had also been blaring the vessel’s horn during the early morning, which Schermerhorn said partly prompted the law enforcement response.
Forbes (right) remained in custody Tuesday after she was arrested on suspicion of felony burglary at Sausalito Yacht Harbor
ABC7 identified the vessel where Forbes was arrested as a 66-foot yacht named the Lisa Marie.
Captain Bill Aubrey said he discovered Forbes inside the yacht and called 911.
‘She had the horn going, the windshield wipers going, the spotlight going,’ Aubrey told the station.
Forbes appeared calm when Aubrey confronted her.
‘I told her to get off the boat,’ he said. ‘She looked at me and said, “Good morning.” She was very friendly.’
Other vessels appeared to have been tampered with, but investigators lacked enough information or evidence to connect Forbes to them, Schermerhorn told the Daily Mail. Sausalito police investigated those vessels.
Boat owner Andy Cunningham said police contacted her and asked her to come to the marina.
‘I came down here, police met me at the boat, and we discovered unbelievable chaos on my boat,’ Cunningham told ABC7.
The women separated in September 2022 and court records show their marriage officially ended in June 2024
Cunningham said clothing had been removed from storage and apparently tried on, while food and alcohol appeared to have been consumed.
‘She took all my clothes and tried them on,’ Cunningham said. ‘They were inside out.’
Cunningham said a jar of maraschino cherries had been emptied into a shoebox and four bottles of wine appeared to have been consumed.
Aubrey separately told the San Francisco Standard that bottles of Grey Goose vodka and tequila had been full when he checked the yacht the previous night but were empty by morning.
‘She wasn’t staggering,’ Aubrey said, ‘but the booze was gone.’
Schermerhorn told the Daily Mail that various alcohol bottles were strewn throughout the vessel where Forbes was found. However, it remained unclear whether Forbes had consumed their contents or whether the bottles had been emptied before deputies arrived.
Yazzolino told the Marin Independent Journal that Forbes said she was having a ‘bad morning’ and ordered officers to get off what she described as her boat.
Singer suggested Forbes may have mistaken the vessel for her own floating home.
Elaine Forbes, second from left, joined San Francisco officials at Visa’s Mission Rock grand opening in June 2024, one year before resigning as Port executive director
‘She does, in fact, live on a houseboat,’ Singer told ABC7. ‘In her mental health crisis, she may have believed she was on her houseboat but didn’t recognize it wasn’t hers.’
Forbes’ family asked the public not to rush to judgment in a statement distributed by Singer.
‘Elaine is experiencing a mental health crisis,’ the statement said.
‘As the facts become clearer and Elaine obtains legal and healthcare counsel in the coming hours and days, we hope people will respond with compassion, patience and respect for her and her family during an extraordinarily difficult time.’
A source told the Post that Forbes began experiencing mental health problems last summer.
Another source told the outlet that Mayor Daniel Lurie’s administration had considered appointing a new port director and was negotiating Forbes’ departure before she resigned.
The Daily Mail contacted Lurie’s office for comment.
The city declined to address the allegations because of the active investigation but called Forbes’ arrest ‘a difficult development for our city staff and our community.’
It said Phipps would oversee municipal operations while the City Council considered its next steps.
Schermerhorn told the Daily Mail that Forbes had been scheduled for arraignment Tuesday, but the District Attorney’s Office held over the case. He said it could be called Tuesday afternoon or Wednesday morning.
Forbes had not been convicted of a crime.
