OAKLAND – The Alameda County District Attorney’s Office offered a bombshell this week related to a federal public corruption scandal that has engulfed Oakland City Hall politics for half of 2024.
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For the first time since the FBI-led June 20 raids, there’s new evidence linking figures named in the sprawling federal investigation.
Here is what the DA’s Monday court filing says:
The politically-minded recycling contractors
The Duong family — led by its patriarch, David Duong, and his son, Andy Duong — allegedly authorized multiple secret payments to an Oakland political operative, with the goal of swaying the 2022 mayoral election of candidate Sheng Thao.
By doing so, the family’s recycling company, California Waste Solutions, could remain in a favorable position to continue reaping millions of dollars in lucrative city contracts.
In all, the Duongs, CWS and ABC Security Services, a city security contractor, funneled at least $295,000 before and after the November 2022 election to the political operative. The exact breakdown of payments remained unclear Monday, though the Duongs sent the operative at least $75,000 of that total before the election, prosecutors alleged.
The operative then used at least some of that money to send racially charged and unflattering mailers targeting Thao’s political opponents — Loren Taylor and Ignacio De La Fuente — to thousands of Oakland voters, days ahead of the 2022 election. Thao, then a District 4 councilmember, ended up beating Taylor by just 677 votes out of 113,735 ballots counted.
From left, Mario Juarez, founder of Evolutionary Homes, Andy Duong, California Waste Solutions Director, and David Duong, president and CEO of California Waste Solutions. (YouTube/Facebook/Bay Area News Group)
Mario Juarez, the political operative
The Duongs’ political operative of choice was Mario Juarez, a former two-time Oakland City Council candidate who in recent years has come under multiple criminal investigations for his business dealings.
In the 2022 election, prosecutors claim Juarez channeled tens of thousands of dollars from his business checking account to his daughter’s high school checking account, in an attempt to avoid paying for the pro-Thao mailers. Nearly $54,000 in checks he wrote for the mailers later bounced, county prosecutors say.
Afterward, Juarez and the Duongs continued doing business together — co-founding a company called Evolutionary Homes that purported to build homes out of revamped shipping containers for homeless women and children. Their partnership ended in a dramatic confrontation on May 3, 2024 at the company’s Oakland waterfront offices, after the Duongs accused Juarez of defrauding them and failing to deliver on their $1 million investment in the company, court records show.
Juarez has since joined David and Andy Duong as a central figure in the FBI’s public corruption investigation. He’s widely believed to be cooperating with federal authorities. Juarez’s Fruitvale District home was shot up 11 days prior to the raids — an attack that Oakland police have called a failed attempt to kill him.
Some of the money Juarez allegedly received during the 2022 election ended up in the hands of Thao’s boyfriend. Financial records obtained by prosecutors show Juarez wrote him two checks totaling $7,500 immediately after the election.
Andre Jones at Sheng Thao’s inauguration as the 51st mayor of Oakland at the Paramount Theater in Oakland in 2023. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group)
Andre Jones, the mayor’s romantic partner
Monday’s filing is the first documented connection between Andre Jones and Juarez.
The purpose of the $7,500 payment sent after November 2022 remains unclear. It is unknown where Jones was working at the time.
Up until 2021, Jones was employed by the state’s Bureau of Cannabis Control.
Before that, he worked in Oakland City Hall as chief of staff to Oakland City Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan. There, he met Thao in 2012, while she worked as an intern and recent graduate from UC Berkeley.
Federal investigators have sent subpoenas asking for the calendars of Thao and Jones, as well as records involving Juarez, California Waste Solutions, Evolutionary Homes and the former Oakland Army Base.
The federal government’s investigation is ongoing and no one has been charged with a crime.