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The former San Francisco City Hall employee who had an affair with Mayor Gavin Newsom benefited from unusual treatment before and after she left her job to be treated for substance abuse, but there is no evidence city officials broke any laws, a report released Wednesday by the city attorney's office found. Ruby Rippey-Tourk appears to be the only city employee ever granted catastrophic-illness pay for treatment of alcohol addiction, a decision approved by the head of the Public Health Department, the report, issued by City Attorney Dennis Herrera, showed. Rippey-Tourk also is the only city employee approved for the...

She commented online about S.F. mayor's affair with aide - San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's girlfriend apologized Monday after making disparaging comments on a local Internet site about Newsom's former commission appointments secretary, with whom he had an affair. Jennifer Siebel, an aspiring actress who splits her time between West Hollywood and San Francisco, commented extensively about Newsom's affair on the blog SFist.com, in which she said Ruby Rippey-Tourk is someone with a "checkered history." Siebel made the comments in reaction to others on the SFist site who criticized her after a story in Sunday's Chronicle about Siebel's new movie...

Ruby Rippey-Tourk, the woman who had an affair with San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, received $10,154 in unexplained retroactive pay after leaving her job as his commission appointments secretary, public records show. City Attorney Dennis Herrera said Thursday that privacy laws prohibit the city from explaining the basis for the payment or discussing hundreds of hours in paid leave that Rippey-Tourk also collected. In a written statement, Herrera said he is reviewing the payments to ensure they are proper "under city laws and procedures," adding that his office would have no further comment before that examination is concluded. Rippey-Tourk is...

SAN FRANCISCO -- In the midst of an election year, Mayor Gavin Newsom's campaign manager Alex Tourk has announced that he will step down from his post. SFGate.com reported Tourk resigned after confronting Newsom for allegedly having an affair with his wife, Ruby Rippey-Tourk. The admission from Rippey-Turke came as part of a rehabilitation program she has been undergoing for substance abuse, according to sources to the paper. Newsom refused to comment on the report, according to NBC11. Rippey-Tourk, 34, was the mayor's appointments secretary at the beginning of his administration in 2004. She worked for the mayor until the...