The indictment caps a monthslong federal grand jury inquiry that shook the area’s political circles simply months forward of a recall election concentrating on the first-term mayor. Thao was booted from workplace by greater than 60% of voters in November.
Reached early Thursday afternoon, Thao’s lawyer, Jeff Tsai, stated he and his shopper had not been contacted by the U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace, and so they have been unaware of any motion within the federal investigation.
The event comes only a day after FBI brokers raided the house of one other East Bay politician, San Leandro Metropolis Councilmember Bryan Azevedo, who, together with Thao, was amongst a number of officers who visited Vietnam as a part of a commerce delegation two years in the past.
The unique inquiry burst into public view June 20 when brokers with the FBI, the Inner Income Service and the U.S. Postal Service raided 4 addresses throughout the town, together with Thao’s dwelling within the Oakland Hills that she shared together with her accomplice, former Metropolis Corridor council aide Andre Jones. Additionally raided have been the houses and waterfront enterprise workplaces of David and Andy Duong, the father-son duo who personal and function the town’s recycling contractor, California Waste Options.
The raids despatched shockwaves all through Oakland, resulting in revelations of an alleged assassination try concentrating on a suspected FBI informant, alleged backroom election-season dealings and accusations of a sprawling “straw donor” scheme geared toward elevating politicians seen as favorable to the Duongs and their recycling empire.
Thao has lengthy proclaimed her innocence — declaring in a Metropolis Corridor press convention days after the raids that “I will not be bullied,” whereas sustaining that “I am confident I will not be charged with a crime, because I am innocent.” Talking by means of tears, she confused the FBI’s investigation was “not about me,” whereas insinuating that the raids have been one way or the other linked to the broader political forces searching for to take away her from workplace.
The whole scenario “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,” Thao stated on the press convention in late June.
The Duongs have additionally denied wrongdoing — issuing a press release over the summer season emphasizing how they have been “very surprised” by the FBI’s searches, and that they “have not engaged in or committed any illegal activities.”
Federal officers initially appeared to solid a large internet — issuing subpoenas to Oakland metropolis attorneys that sought paperwork associated to the previous Oakland Military Base, native homelessness initiatives and Evolutionary Properties LLC, an obscure homebuilder partly based by David and Andy Duong. Additionally requested have been a slew of paperwork concerning Jones, Thao’s decade-long romantic accomplice, together with metropolis insurance policies on retaining and destroying paperwork.
The inquiry later needled its means into the Oakland Police Division, the place federal investigators sought OPD inside cellphone quantity directories, in addition to police reviews associated to the Duong household and an obvious falling out with Mario Juarez, who co-founded the housing firm with the Duongs.
The Duongs’ involvement appeared to echo one other scandal that ensnared a unique Bay Space mayor practically 20 years in the past.
Their firm — which additionally supplies curbside recycling pickup providers in San Jose — performed a tangential position within the 2006 indictment of San Jose’s then-mayor, Ron Gonzales, on bribery expenses. Prosecutors alleged a conspiracy to assist Norcal Waste Methods safe a profitable trash hauling contract modification. California Waste Options was a subcontractor for Norcal on the time.
A decide later tossed the fees towards Gonzalez, citing errors given to the grand jury. CWS later ended up with the San Jose metropolis contract.
Since then, the household’s political maneuverings have come underneath a harsh highlight.
Lately, state marketing campaign finance regulators and Oakland’s ethics watchdog accused the Duong household of orchestrating a yearslong marketing campaign to secretly funnel hundreds of {dollars} to quite a few political candidates throughout the Bay Space, all in violation of marketing campaign finance legal guidelines. The politicians whose campaigns allegedly benefitted from the scheme included Thao and former Oakland Metropolis councilmembers Rebecca Kaplan, Dan Kalb, Larry Reid and Lynette Gibson McElhaney.
Regulators additionally claimed Andy Duong sought ties with a number of different politicians over time, together with California’s now-Lawyer Normal Rob Bonta, who was seen by the household as an “ally,” and somebody who would “deliver whatever we ask for.” His political schmoozing included a visit to the Philippines with Bonta — whereas Duong was underneath investigation and Bonta was AG — and handshake footage with a who’s who of native and nationwide politicians, together with the final two Democratic U.S. presidents.
In December, a bombshell courtroom submitting by the Alameda County District Lawyer’s Workplace claimed the Duongs and one other metropolis contractor paid a whole lot of hundreds of {dollars} across the time of the November 2022 election to Juarez, then a political operative. Their alleged objective: Elect Thao to workplace and preserve their profitable contracts with the town.
“These companies have valuable contracts with the city of Oakland, and an interest in the election of then-candidate for mayor, Sheng Thao,” Senior Assistant District Lawyer Kwixuan Maloof wrote within the movement. To that finish, Maloof added that Juarez was “a conduit for these companies to help the mayor win and preserve and enhance the companies’ access to taxpayer-funded contracts.”
Not less than among the $295,000 in funds funded controversial mailers designed to assault Loren Taylor, Thao’s greatest opponent within the 2022 election, and one other mayoral candidate, former Councilman Ignacio De La Fuente, the submitting stated.
Additionally alleged was a $7,500 cost to Jones, Thao’s live-in boyfriend, whose employment historical past since 2021 has remained a thriller. Thao and Jones met whereas they labored for former Councilmember Kaplan — he as chief of employees, she as an intern.
Juarez had been a enterprise accomplice with the Duongs, till a bitter falling out in spring 2024, when the Duongs accused Juarez of defrauding them and failing to ship on their $1 million funding of their housing firm, courtroom information present. The dispute led to dueling claims that every facet assaulted the opposite throughout a Could 3 confrontation exterior the California Waste Options’ headquarters on Embarcadero.
A month later, Juarez’s Fruitvale District dwelling was shot up in what authorities say was a failed assassination try. The federal raids occurred 11 days later.
Himself a two-time Oakland Metropolis Council candidate, Juarez is believed to have spent a lot of 2024 cooperating with federal authorities of their public corruption marketing campaign.
Initially Revealed: January 16, 2025 at 2:41 PM PST
