Over seven-plus hours of grueling testimony, prosecutors pulled the curtain this week on thousands of texts, videos and secretly-recorded phone calls detailing an alleged cash grab within the Oakland mayor’s office during Sheng Thao’s recall-shortened term.
Federal prosecutors admitted a trove of documents and surreptitiously-captured pictures in testimony that laid a foundation for their bribery conspiracy case against former Mayor Thao, her romantic partner, Andre Jones and the father-son business duo of David and Andy Duong. Through it all, an FBI special agent read aloud scores of texts to the jury, while detailing more than 60 pictures captured on Andy Duong’s phone.
The review encompassed the entirety of the alleged bribery scheme, during which prosecutors say the Duongs funneled tens of thousands of dollars to Thao and Jones. In exchange, prosecutors say the Duongs sought broad influence within City Hall, along with millions of dollars in promised city contracts for two of their companies, California Waste Solutions and Evolutionary Homes.
The document dump included texts detailing the Thao household’s financial woes, selfies from a high-profile delegation trip to Vietnam in summer 2023 and phone calls recorded by Andy Duong with Thao. In one call played to the jury, Thao called current City Councilperson Janani Ramachandran and then-Councilperson Treva Reid “bitches,” while warning the younger Duong that “you’re going to have to (expletive) pick and choose” between prioritizing her or other elected officials.
All four defendants have pleaded not guilty to a slew of charges, including conspiracy to commit bribery and wire and mail fraud. The most serious offenses carry a potential 20-year prison term.
Defense attorneys say the prosecution’s entire case is little more than the imagined wishes of one man, a business partner with the Duongs who represented the fifth and final person involved in the alleged scheme. In their openings, the defendants’ attorneys called that person, Mario Juarez, “the master of half truths,” while suggesting that prosecutors had mistakenly built the bulk of their case on the words of a single, deeply-flawed witness.
A celebration on Oct. 5, 2022, was captured in a 90-second, eyebrow-raising video that prosecutors played for the jury on Thursday. In it, their star witness could be seen holding a bottle of champagne and toasting to the Duong family’s exploits.
On Friday, one attorney took issue with some of the pictures that prosecutors displayed to the jury, honeing in on one picture of four champagne bottles and five cigars resting on a table at California Waste Solutions, which was taken the day Juarez and the Duongs celebrated the start of their new joint housing company.
“The government’s just gilding the lily by adding these photos,” said the attorney, Erik Babcock, drawing an immediate objection from a prosecutor.
“The day after you won the city of Oakland contract, you were there paying everybody,” proclaimed Juarez, a longtime political operative. “Everyone was like (expletive) piranhas after you. I remember, because I was there. I was in your office, fifty thousand, one hundred thousand, whatever it was.”
“I defended your family, I defend CWS, I defend them physically,” Juarez added.
Juarez did not specifically name anyone in the video who previously took payments from the Duongs. At least one other local politician — Bryan Azevedo, a former two-term San Leandro city councilman — has taken a plea deal in the current alleged scheme, and is expected to testify for prosecutors ahead of a December sentencing date.
Moments before popping the champagne bottle’s cork, Juarez laid out his vision for Evolutionary Homes.
“Hopefully this is one of many projects we do together and we make a lot of money,” Juarez said in the video. “To that, I toast you guys.”
Juarez also had an October meeting scheduled with Thao, according to a calendar entry for the then-mayoral candidate.
Details of that meeting came as prosecutors spent hours focusing on the early days and weeks of the alleged scheme, taking pains to highlight Thao’s involvement as the gambit ground into gear.
After his scheduled discussion with Thao, Juarez rattled off a string of texts to Andy Duong — relaying that “she will buy 100 units if mayor,” albeit with “one catch,” newly-admitted evidence showed. Juarez went on to reference a $300,000 contract, as well as another “$30 million contract for 100 units.”
“She will call you heads up,” Juarez then told Andy Duong.
A day later, on Oct. 8, 2022, Thao provided Jones’ phone number to Juarez, at the longtime political operative’s request.
The texts and calls continued over the next several days, as Juarez asked Jones for “polling” and other information that he needed for the creation of controversial campaign mailers, which rocked the mayoral race just days ahead of the November 2022 election.
The mailers formed a key element of the alleged bribery scheme, with prosecutors claiming the Duongs bankrolled them by funneling $75,000 through an independent expenditure committee established by Juarez. By law, such committees cannot directly collaborate with any candidate for office.
On Oct. 12, Juarez reached out to Thao, asking “where is Andre and my stuff?” Thao later contacted Jones regarding the request, and he subsequently exchanged several phone calls with Juarez that evening. At the time, Jones had been advising Thao on her mayoral campaign.
Babcock, who represents Andy Duong, hounded the FBI special agent called to testify about the trove of evidence collected during her investigation. Babcock particularly grilled the agent about the absence of any recordings detailing the phone calls or meetings during which the alleged scheme took shape.
“So as to all of those meetings and discussions, you have to rely on Mr. Juarez to know what was said?” Babcock said.
“No, I disagree,” replied the agent, Katherine Barclay. “I think there’s other evidence that indicates what was discussed at those meetings.”
Federal prosecutors also spent much of Thursday and Friday carefully pairing the defendants’ texts and phone records with each step of the alleged scheme from late 2022 through early 2024. Often, they displayed candid photos pulled from Andy Duong’s phone that appeared to be clandestinely taken during nearly every meeting he attended.
The testimony included myriad texts about a Dec. 7, 2022, meeting at a fried Korean chicken eatery called Bonchon, which included Thao, Jones, Andy Duong and Juarez. Later that day, Thao was pictured in an image taken by Andy Duong at a California Waste Solutions conference table.
A week later, Andy Duong took pictures of multiple handwritten diagrams a white board at the recycling company’s offices, which included the word “mayor” and a flow chart depicting housing development in the city, along with the words “300 units,” according to images shown to the jury. Later that day, Juarez and Jones called each other 11 times, phone records showed.
The first checks from a company owned by Juarez were deposited into Jones’ bank account beginning the following day, on Dec. 14, 2022, Barclay testified. The deposit coincided with a text from Thao that evening, when she demanded that Jones “pay the (expletive) rent.”
Money problems were a perpetual topic in Thao’s texts. In April 2022, for example, Thao texted Jones that “I don’t have enough to cover rent by myself this month,” particularly with a $1,000-plus electric bill and an $800 water bill. In May 2023, Thao told Jones in a text that Pacific Gas & Electric wanted $6,000 to turn their utilities back on.
One payment from Juarez to Jones garnered an outsized spotlight from prosecutors this week — a $5,000 check that Jones deposited on Jan. 4, 2023. It arrived the same day that Thao texted Jones to “Pls figure out how we pay rent this month asap,” the testimony showed.
“Yeah I’ll take care of it,” Jones replied.
Jakob Rodgers is a senior breaking news reporter. Call, text or send him an encrypted message via Signal at 510-390-2351, or email him at jrodgers@bayareanewsgroup.com.