A courtroom rendering of Jeffrey Tsai, attorney for Sheng Thao, questioning witness Noah Finneburgh, who served as campaign consultant for Thao’s 2022 mayoral campaign. (A.I.-generated image)Day 4
—The infamous negative mailers that roiled Oakland’s 2022 mayoral election took center stage Monday as federal prosecutors and defense attorneys revisited the controversial campaign attacks that allegedly helped launch a bribery conspiracy involving former Mayor Sheng Thao, her longtime partner Andre Jones and prominent Oakland recycling executives.
The fourth day of testimony in the Oakland public corruption trial featured Noah Finneburgh, Thao’s 2022 campaign consultant, who described the campaign’s internal debate over whether to publicly condemn the racially charged mailers attacking mayoral opponent Loren Taylor.
Later, a FBI special agent detailed how investigators uncovered evidence of an alleged pay-to-play arrangement after receiving a tip involving the mailers’ unpaid printing costs.
—MAILER CONTROVERSY—Finneburgh testified that Thao’s campaign raised approximately $450,000, enough to finance three mailers of its own. He described Jones as a trusted campaign adviser who regularly participated in messaging and strategy discussions.
“He was often weighing in,” Finneburgh said.
With the election approaching, an independent expenditure committee associated with political operative Mario Juarez unleashed a series of negative mailers attacking Taylor and former Councilmember Ignacio De La Fuente, linking them to Oakland’s controversial coal industry.
Finneburgh initially welcomed the outside help.
“At first I was excited that someone did mail,” he testified.
But his enthusiasm quickly soured. He considered the mailers “over the top,” particularly the digitally altered depiction of Taylor that drew accusations of racism.
The campaign drafted a statement condemning the imagery as portraying a “stereotypical angry black man” and declaring that such attacks had no place in Oakland politics.
The statement was never released.
Instead, Finneburgh testified, Thao and Jones favored a less forceful response. Jones believed the mailers were helping the campaign, while others worried that condemning them would draw additional attention to their contents.
“Technically, they did help us,” Finneburgh acknowledged, although he believed publicly criticizing the imagery would have been appropriate.
The campaign ultimately issued a social media statement distancing itself from the attacks.
“My campaign did not and would never send something like this out,” the statement read, emphasizing that an outside independent expenditure committee was responsible.
—DEFENSE PUSHES BACK—Thao’s attorney, Jeffrey Tsai, sought to establish that neither Thao nor her campaign created the controversial mailers.
He repeatedly characterized Juarez, who organized the attack pieces, as having a “sick mind.”
Finneburgh agreed that the mailers were inappropriate and questioned whether their extreme messaging was politically effective.
Attorneys for Jones similarly argued that alienating Black voters would have run counter to the campaign’s interests.
Finneburgh acknowledged that the mailers’ actual effect on the election was impossible to determine. Thao defeated Taylor by just 677 votes.
But prosecutors highlighted similarities between the campaign’s opposition research and the outside attacks.
One internal research document alleged that Taylor accepted contributions from polluters connected to companies seeking to transport coal through West Oakland.
“So, Loren is accepting money from polluters who are in bed with the company trying to ship coal through West Oakland,” the campaign research stated.
Prosecutors pointed to comparable themes in Juarez’s mailers, although the defense emphasized that the underlying information was publicly available.
In the prosecution’s opening statement they alleged that Jones provided Juarez with opposition research to help prepare the negative mailers against Taylor.
—FOLLOW THE UNPAID BILL—The afternoon testimony shifted to Catherine Barclay, an FBI special agent assigned to public corruption investigations, who described how the federal investigation began.
In February 2023, Oakland Public Ethics Commission officials provided information originating with Samari Johnson, whose printing company had produced the independent expenditure mailers but allegedly had not been paid by Juarez.
Johnson relayed to the Ethics Commission that Juarez had indicated he expected something in return for helping Thao’s candidacy.
Investigators quietly obtained a search warrant for Juarez’s Apple iCloud account, gaining access to messages, photographs, Apple Notes and other electronic records without alerting him.
One particularly revealing document, dated March 26, 2023, outlined what investigators interpreted as Juarez’s understanding of a proposed arrangement involving the city purchasing 300 modular homes priced at $300,000 each, a seat on the Port of Oakland Commission, and a 10-year extension benefiting California Waste Solutions, the recycling company associated with the Duong family.
In a WhatsApp exchange, Juarez asked Andy Duong whether anything was missing from the proposed arrangement. “Not missing,” Duong replied.
When Juarez asked whether they should share the information with his father, David Duong, Andy responded: “David knows already.”
“We share to him numerous times,” he added.
Investigators subsequently obtained additional communications and banking records, including documentation showing Jones received $95,000 from a company associated with Juarez through the Duongs.
Barclay testified that investigators initially kept the inquiry quiet. But after a May 3, 2024 confrontation involving Juarez and the Duongs at the offices of California Waste Solutions, concerns grew that the Duongs might learn about the investigation and destroy evidence.
The FBI executed search warrants at California Waste Solutions and the defendants’ residences on June 20, 2024 and commenced raids that riveted the region’s politics ever since.
What began with an unpaid political printing bill had developed into a sprawling federal corruption investigation.
The defendants have denied wrongdoing, and prosecutors must still prove that the alleged arrangement amounted to a criminal bribery conspiracy.
—UP NEXT—The Oakland public corruption trial is scheduled to resume on Thursday and Friday and continues testimony from FBI Special Agent Catherine Barclay. Former Oakland City Administrator Jestin Johnson and former Assistant City Administrator Latonda Simmons are expected to follow.
Oakland political activist Seneca Scott held a press conference Monday outside the U.S. District Court in Oakland to denounce former Mayor Sheng Thao as her federal public corruption trial continued. PHOTO/East Bay Insiders
—NAME DROPS—Former Oakland Councilmembers Ignacio De La Fuente, Loren Taylor, Treva Reid, and Rebecca Kaplan; former San Leandro Councilmember Bryan Azevedo; Francis Zamora, Thao’s communication director; Mario Juarez, co-conspirator #1; Thao campaign staffers Brandon Harami, Julie Caskey, and Joe Genolio; Jane Fonda, actress and activist; Dolores Huerta, labor leader; Libby Schaaf, former Oakland mayor; Doug Linney, political consulate; Carrie Hamill, Former California governor and Oakland mayor Jerry Brown; Anne Gust, Brown’s spouse; former Oakland Mayor Jean Quan; Floyd Quan, Quan’s spouse; former Rep. Ron Dellums; Igor Tregub, Alameda County Democratic Party chair; Sierra Club; Sen. Bernie Sanders; California Attorney General Rob Bonta; Samari Johnson, Oakland printing and direct-mail business owner; Building and Construction Trades Council of Alameda County; Wellstone Democratic Renewal Club, Alameda County Democratic Party, IFPTE Local 21.
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