OAKLAND, CA – Former Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao and her partner Andre Jones were indicted by a federal grand jury this week, confirmed the Mercury News and other news outlets Friday, following a month-long federal public corruption inquiry, occurring just before a recall election in which Thao was voted out of office.
Politico reported Thao was indicted on bribery charges, and among the alleged payouts was included $95,000 to Thao’s boyfriend for a “no-show” contracting job.
According to KRON4, the grand jury Friday indicted Thao; Jones; and two businessmen, David Duong and his son, Andy Duong, for bribery, mail fraud, and wire fraud.
According to reporting by Mercury News, federal officials announced the “major law enforcement action” for Friday morning, a day after FBI agents searched the home of San Leonardo City Councilmember Bryan Azevedo, who, along with Thao, was part of a trade delegation that visited Vietnam two years ago.
According to Mercury News, the investigation became public June 20, when FBI agents, along with the Internal Revenue Service and the US Postal Service, conducted several raids throughout the city of Oakland.
These included the Thao’s Oakland Hills home, which she shared with Jones, as well as the homes and waterfront offices of David and Andy Duong, the father-son team behind Waterfront Waste Solutions, the city’s main recycling contractor.
Shortly following these raids, the Mercury News reported Thao proclaimed her innocence stating, “I will not be bullied” while arguing that “I am confident I will not be charged with a crime, because I am innocent.”
However, Thao stated in a June press conference the investigation “wouldn’t have gone down the way it did if I was rich, if I had gone to elite private schools or if I had come from money,” the Mercury News wrote.
Subpoenas related to the inquiry were initially far broader, including, “Oakland city attorneys that sought documents related to the former Oakland Army Base, local homelessness initiatives, and Evolutionary Homes LLC, an obscure homebuilder partly founded by the Duongs,” according to Mercury News.
The Mercury News added documents were requested related to Jones, the romantic partner of Thao, as well as for the city’s policies of document handling. It was later discovered that the Duongs had a fallout with Mario Juarez, the cofounder of the housing company, through police reports filed with the Oakland Police Department.
As reported by the Mercury News, the housing company also had involvement in the indictment of the mayor of San Jose, Ron Gonzales in 2006. Gonzales faced bribery charges due to an alleged conspiracy to obtain a trash-hauling contract for Norcal Waste Systems when California Waste Solutions was the subcontractor at the time.
The Merc added, Duong’s housing company provided curbside recycling pickup services in San Jose at the time, leading to the beginning of being under a harsh political spotlight. Due to errors given to the grand jury, the case against Gonzales was dropped.
Mercury News also reported the Duong family has been accused of violating campaign finance laws by running a years-long scheme to secretly funnel thousands of dollars to political candidates throughout the Bay Area. The political candidates involved were Thao, along with Oakland City council members Rebecca Kaplan, Dan Kalb, Larry Reid, and Lynette Gibson McElhaney.
An email from a staffer involved with Thao’s city council campaign was found to request money from the Duongs a week prior to the Thao campaign, receiving 14 suspicious donations. These donations are assumed to have come from the Duongs and their network of “straw donors,” as reported by the Mercury News, to have come from a regulatory complaint.
Doung has also been tied to other politicians, such as California’s present Attorney General Rob Bonta. Regulators also claimed that the Duongs viewed the Attorney General as an “ally” and someone who would “deliver whatever we ask for.”
Another instance of the Duong’s involvement in city politics, revealed by the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office, occurred this past December when the family, along with another city contractor, paid hundreds of thousands of dollars during the November 2022 election to Juarez, wrote the Mercury News.
The publication reported their alleged goal was to elect Thao to office, so they could keep their city contracts. Some of the $295,000 in payments were used to attack mayoral candidate Loren Taylor, Thao’s biggest opponent, and former Councilman Ignacio De La Fuente. It was also alleged a $7,500 payment was made to Jones. Thao and Jones were reported to have met when they both worked for Councilmember Kaplan.
Juarez and Duong had been business partners until the Spring of 2024 when “the Duongs accused Juarez of defrauding them and failing to deliver on their $1 million investment in their housing company, court records show,” as reported by Mercury News.
This led to the claims where both sides accused each other of assault on May 3 outside the California Waste Solutions’ headquarters, reported the Mercury News, adding a month after this incident authorities claim the shooting that occurred at Juarez’s house to be a failed assassination attempt, with the federal raids occurring 11 days later.
Mercury News reports Juarez is believed to be cooperating with federal authorities in their investigation into public corruption.
