Sheng Thao, the former mayor of Oakland, and three others have been indicted for a slate of federal charges including conspiracy and bribery. The indictment, which was unsealed and announced in California on Friday, is the culmination of an investigation led by the FBI, the US Postal Inspection Service, and the US Internal Revenue Service.
Also charged in the indictment were Andre Jones, Thao’s longtime romantic partner, and David and Andy Duong, a father-son business duo who own Cal Waste Solutions, the company that picks up the recyclables of Oakland’s more than 436,000 residents. The foursome are accused of orchestrating a scheme in which Thao allegedly extended contracts for Cal Waste Solutions, appointed high-level officials who would allegedly help the Duongs’ business interests, and bought housing units from another company owned by the Duongs.
In exchange, the Duongs allegedly promised to pay $300,000 in direct cash payments for “no-show” jobs to Jones, and allegedly put $75,000 toward a mailer campaign that targeted Thao’s opponent in the 2022 mayoral election.
The indictment also mentions an unnamed person addressed only as “Co-conspirator 1” who founded the company Thao allegedly promised to buy houses from with the Duongs, and who was allegedly involved in setting up the scheme before the November 2022 mayoral election.
“Our communities depend on local government for critical services,” Patrick D Robbins, with the US attorney’s office, said at a press conference. “The public needs to know it can trust those in charge of city hall to work for the best interest of the people. This public trust was broken when elected officials agreed to a pay-to-play system to benefit themselves.”
The unsealing of the federal indictment comes nearly three months after Thao, 39, was recalled by Oakland voters and seven months after Thao’s Oakland home was raided by the FBI. At the time, Thao denied any wrongdoing and said the raid was suspiciously timed, since it came days after backers of the mayoral recall were informed by the city clerk they had collected enough signatures to qualify for the ballot, the Guardian reported last June.
The Guardian contacted Thao’s attorney for comment, but did not receive a response by the time of publication.
Winston Chan, Andy Duong’s attorney, said his client was innocent and that the allegations against him were “baseless”.
Chan said in a statement: “We have kept quiet despite the media frenzy of the past months in the hope that the government would correctly come to see through objective investigation that the allegations are baseless, and being fanned by nothing more than gossip and supposition, stitched together by the fabrications and delusions of those who lack all fundamental credibility.
“But disappointingly, Andy instead is today the most recent in a long line of Asian Americans who unfairly are singled out and forced to pay a price for daring to be active in the political sphere.”
Robbins, with the US attorney’s office, said the investigation was triggered by information shared with the FBI by people with Oakland’s public ethics commission. According to the indictment, which was published online by Oaklandside, a local news outlet, the alleged scheme between the Duongs, Thao and Jones began in the weeks leading up to the 2022 mayoral election, which Thao narrowly won, by 677 votes.
In early October 2022, the co-conspirator allegedly met with Thao to discuss the terms of their agreement. After that meeting, the co-conspirator broke down his meeting with Thao in a text exchange with Andy Duong, which was included in the indictment. In the messages, the co-conspirator told Andy Duong that Thao agreed to buy 100 of their housing units for $300,000 apiece.
After Thao won the election, the co-conspirator texted Andy Duong saying: “So we may go to jail … But we are $100m richer.” To which Andy Duong allegedly replied: “Money buys everything.”
In December, Jones, Thao’s longtime romantic partner, began cashing checks from the co-conspirators’ bank accounts and from the housing company owned by the anonymous person and the Duongs. Although Thao, a Democrat, did not cash the checks, she allegedly benefited from the payments made to Jones, since the pair lived together and the money was allegedly used to pay their rent and other household bills, the indictment read.