SAN FRANCISCO — Federal prosecutors here have unsealed an indictment charging Oakland’s former mayor, her longtime partner, and the owners of a waste company in a bribery scheme that allegedly influenced local government behind closed doors.
Sheng Thao, Andre Jones, and father and son Andy and David Duong were indicted on bribery and conspiracy charges. At a Friday news conference, prosecutors used language reminiscent of mobster movies, referring to $95,000 payments for “no show jobs” and a “pay to play” scheme that Jones and Thao allegedly benefited from, to extend local recycling contracts for the Duong family.
“The citizens of Oakland the larger Bay Area deserve better and demand their public officials to adhere to the highest standards of civil service and full transparency,” Linda Nguyen, an assistant special agent at the Internal Revenue Service, said at the news conference. “The accused in this case fell short of those standards.”
The charges include conspiracy, bribery, mail fraud, and making false statements to authorities, court records show. Much of the allegations center on a 2022 election mailers benefiting Thao, which have already resulted in local criminal charges against the man allegedly behind them.
The investigation is ongoing, prosecutors said.
The announcement Friday came almost almost seven months to the day after agents with the FBI, the Internal Revenue Service and the U.S. Postal Service raided Thao’s Oakland Hills house, along with the homes and businesses offices of David and Andy Duong, along with their recycling company, California Waste Solutions.
The indictment alleges that the fix was in before Thao even took office. Weeks before being elected mayor in 2022, she agreed to “benefit” a housing and recycling company owned by the Duongs “in exchange for various benefits” to herself and Jones.
Much of the scheme centers on an unnamed “Co-Conspirator 1,” who allegedly discussed the results of the 2022 election with Andy Duong. When it became clear that Thao — whom they supported — would emerge victorious, but that ex-Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price would also win, the unnamed co-conspirator quipped, “So we may go to jail…but we are $100 million dollars (sic) richer.”
“Money buys everything,” Duong allegedly replied.
At a news conference Friday announcing the indictments, First Assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick Robbins described how the charges lay out “a corrupt scheme in which the defendants used bribes, wire fraud, mail fraud and other illegal practices to manipulate and corruptly influence the levers of local government.”
Robbins noted he was standing in for U.S. Attorney Ismail Ramsey of the state’s Northern District — whose late father, Henry, had been a longtime Alameda County judge– has recused himself from the federal investigation, but declined to specify why.
Thao walked into the Ronald V. Dellums Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse shortly after 8:30 a.m. Friday, accompanied by her attorney, Jeff Tsai. Wearing a dark blue pantsuit, Thao appeared in a light mood — chatting and laughing while exchanging jokes with a security guard after walking inside.
Approached by a reporter, she declined to comment and directed questions to her attorney. Tsai said he planned to address the media after Thao’s initial appearance and arraignment Friday morning.
“It’s nice to see you again,” she told a reporter.
David and Andy Duong arrived at the courthouse shortly after 9 a.m., accompanied by several attorneys. David Duong wore a dark blue suit and blue tie. After shaking hands with his son Andy after they reached passed through courthouse security.
Neither man acknowledged a reporter who asked the two men questions after the entered the courthouse.
Since last Summer’s raids, federal officials offered few clues about the investigation outside of subpoenas issued to the city, which sought documents related to the former Oakland Army Base, homelessness initiatives, the Oakland Police Department and Evolutionary Homes LLC, an obscure homebuilder partly founded by the Duongs. The FBI also signaled an interest in Jones, Thao’s decade-long romantic partner, along with city policies on retaining and destroying documents.
A significant revelation came in December, when the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office claimed the Duongs and another city contractor paid hundreds of thousands of dollars around the time of the November 2022 election to a political operative. By elevating Thao to office, prosecutors alleged, each company could potential maintain their lucrative contracts with the city.
In all, the companies funneled $295,000 in payments to the operative — some of which funded controversial mailers attacking Loren Taylor, Thao’s biggest opponent in the 2022 election, and another mayoral candidate, former Councilman Ignacio De La Fuente, prosecutors’ filing alleged. The DA’s office also claimed Jones received a $7,500 payment from the operative, himself a failed two-time City Council candidate named Mario Juarez.
Juarez later funded a housing company with the Duongs called Evolutionary Homes, which approached city officials across the East Bay with a proposal to help homeless women and children by turning shipping containers into living spaces. The partnership appeared to fizzle in spring 2024, after the Duongs claimed Juarez bilked them out of a $1 million investment in the company and the two sides traded assault allegations.
Juarez ultimately is believed to have spent much of 2024 cooperating with federal authorities in their public corruption campaign. And in June, Juarez’s Fruitvale District home was shot up in what authorities described as a failed assassination attempt.
Last year, Price’s office charged Juarez with grand theft for allegedly bouncing checks to pay for the mailers. He has countered that Price charged him only after failing to extort him for $20,000, and Juarez’s lawyer said he expects the case to soon be dismissed. Price, recalled in the same 2024 election as Thao, denied ever speaking to Juarez in substance on the day Juarez claims she tried to shake him down. Two other lawyers, from the public defender’s office, later came forward with allegations that Price punished their client in a murder case after one of the lawyers declined to offer political support.
It all marked the culmination of a disastrous seven-month fall from grace for Thao, an ambitious politician who quickly parlayed a single term on Oakland’s City Council into nearly two years as the youngest mayor in the city’s history. A Stockton-born daughter of Hmong refugees, she began her career as an aide to Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan and quickly amassed support from a wide coalition of labor unions that ultimately led her to the city’s highest office.
Despite her persistent claims of innocence and assurances to the public that she was not the target of the FBI’s criminal probe, Thao quickly lost trust with a public already reeling from the pandemic’s hardships. And the 39-year-old former mayor’s frequent feuds with the city’s institutions — from the local NAACP chapter to a popular police chief Thao fired to a business community fed up with crime — left her scrambling for allies ahead of a historic recall election in November, when more than 60% of voters cast ballots calling for her removal from office.
Her most steadfast ally through the years appeared to be Andre Jones, her decade-long romantic partner. The two met while working for Kaplan — he as the councilmember’s chief of staff, she as an intern — and later lived together in a house in the Oakland Hills, each of them raising a child together from a previous relationship.
Until Friday, the Duong family had been known more for prolific schmoozing alongside California’s ruling class and a proclivity for charitable giving each election season.
For years, Andy Duong made a habit of posting pictures on social media of his handshakes, dinners and even vacations with a who’s who of local politicians, including California Attorney General Rob Bonta, former District Attorney Nancy O’Malley and the two most recent Democratic presidents. Meanwhile, David Duong garnered a reputation as a benevolent and opportunistic businessman, donating drones to the Oakland Police Department and helping to lead a trade delegation in 2023 to Vietnam, the country where he grew up and where still operates a recycling business.
Check back for updates to this developing story.
Shomik Mukherjee is a reporter covering Oakland who can be reached via call or text at 510-905-5495, or via email at shomik@bayareanewsgroup.com. Jakob Rodgers is a senior breaking news reporter who can be reached via call, text or a Signal encrypted message at 510-390-2351, or via email at jrodgers@bayareanewsgroup.com.