When the Division of Justice introduced their indictment of former Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao final week, they stated her live-in boyfriend was bribed to the tune of $95,000. However the full indictment says Thao truly requested for $3 million, although didn’t get it.
Within the wake of Friday’s announcement that former Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao and her romantic companion Andre Jones have been being indicted on eight counts of bribery and fraud, the Chronicle has an attention-grabbing word about one of many businessmen alleged to have bribed the 2 of them. That businessman is David Duong, proprietor of Cal Waste Options, which handles curbside recycling pick-up in Oakland, who can be amongst these being indicted.
And per the Chronicle, Duong was granted his request to a choose to depart city so he may attend Donald Trump’s inauguration in Washington, DC right this moment. So possibly Duong and Trump can bond over their felony indictments, and tips on how to beat them.
Sheng Thao could also be out of workplace, however the former Oakland mayor — recalled in November and indicted this month — goes to loom over Oakland politics at a essential time for the town.
Right here’s who would possibly get hit by the fallout from the corruption scandal: https://t.co/ZhRelgolaY
— San Francisco Chronicle (@sfchronicle) January 20, 2025
Regardless, when the indictments have been introduced Friday, the US Division of Justice stated that Duong and his son Andy Duong “made $95,000 in payments to [Andre] Jones for a no-show job” as a part of the bribery scheme. However now that the feds have launched the total 22-page indictment, it says that Thao requested for extra, in reality, much more. The indictment says Thao requested for “as much as $3 million,” though she and Jones did not receive that full sum.
The indictment says that shortly before Thao was elected mayor in 2022, the Duongs offered that Jones could “make $300,000 in direct funds for a no-show job” if she steered city contracts to the Duongs’ modular home firm Evolutionary Homes. Since Thao and Jones lived together, the spoils could be split between them evenly.
But in March 2023, two months after Thao was sworn into office, the indictment alleges that “Thao asked for additional money upfront in furtherance of the bribery scheme.” It goes on to say that “the parties discussed an updated arrangement whereby Jones would receive up to $3 million, instead of the $300,000 as originally agreed,” in exchange for the City of Oakland upping their purchase to 300 modular homes, and giving Cal Waste Solutions a ten-year renewal contract.
Mind you, Thao and Jones did not get their $3 million bribe, though they did ask for it. Jones did not even get the full $300,000 he was promised, and only got $95,000, as this modular home deal on the decommissioned Oakland Army Base fell through for still-unknown reasons.
But it’s pretty damning that Thao offered to buy the homes using “emergency powers,” which would end-around any required transparency rules and competitive bidding processes. And the fellow who negotiated the bribe, checkered-past businessman Mario Juarez, had perhaps already been flipped by the feds as an informant in this investigation. As we see below from his text messages to Andy Duong, he types the kind of very precise “We are bribing them with this and here’s what we get in return” kind of text threads that makes federal prosecutors’ jobs much easier on public corruption cases.
Image: Department of Justice
Oh, and Sheng Thao’s rent was apparently getting paid with the bribe money. Thao and her partner Jones lived together, and prosecutors say Thao paid the rent herself from December 2021 to April 2022 (before she was mayor). They reportedly then split the rent for the rest of 2022.
But once Thao was mayor and the payments started kincking in, Jones “paid the entirety of the rent,” according to prosecutors. The indictment adds that Jones “increased his contribution to, or paid the entity of, shared bills with Thao, including household utility bills and mobile phone bills.”
We’ve also been waiting for another shot to drop, as Friday’s indictment says that Thao appointed a “high-level city official” in Oakland at the Duongs’ request. That official was not named, though the indictment says that Juarez recommended this person, saying in a text that “I wanted him because while at City he make [sic] sure my projects got done and grants were given to me.”
The indictment also says that Oakland’s City Administrator, who would normally appoint someone to this position, “didn’t consider the expertise of Metropolis Worker 1 certified that particular person for a director-level place.” Yet the person got appointed anyway.
One more interesting nugget. Thao, Jones, and the Duongs were indicted for “making false statements to authorities.” And the indictment points out that Andy Duong lied to the FBI about his payments to Jones, and told the feds he did not “take care of Andre Jones for something.”
So possibly a part of David Duong’s agenda in attending the Trump inauguration was to get his son off the hook for mendacity to FBI brokers. However he might have to purchase an terrible lot of these Trump cryptocurrency meme cash so as to take action.
Associated: Sheng Thao (and Her Boyfriend) Indicted on Eight Federal Counts of Bribery and Corruption [SFist]
Picture: Mayor Sheng Thao through Youtube
