Bryan Azevedo resigned from his seat on San Leandro\u2019s City Council on Monday, and on Wednesday he made a brief appearance in federal court where he pleaded guilty to accepting a bribe and lying about it to federal agents.<\/p>\n
During the hearing, prosecutors indicated that Azevedo is cooperating with them on their ongoing investigation into allegations that two Oakland businessmen bribed East Bay public officials, including former Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao.<\/p>\n
District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers walked Azevedo through the implications of changing his plea. For conspiracy to commit honest services fraud and lying to federal agents Azevedo faces a potential total prison sentence of 25 years and a $500,000 fine. Azevedo said little during the hearing beyond acknowledging that he understood the judge\u2019s comments.<\/p>\n
As part of his plea agreement, Azevedo admitted that he took steps to help an unnamed housing company win a contract with the city of San Leandro in exchange for a $2,000 bribe and a portion of future housing sales. Azevedo admitted that he accepted the bribe through a limited liability company and bank account<\/a> he set up in his wife\u2019s name.\u00a0<\/p>\n The housing company is not named in court records but appears to be Evolutionary Homes<\/a>, a startup founded by David and Andy Duong, the owners of California Waste Solutions. Fruitvale businessman Mario Juarez<\/a> partnered with the Duongs in the company, which hoped to win millions in contracts selling modular homes as homeless shelters.<\/p>\n Azevedo, whose home was raided by the FBI one year ago, initially pleaded not guilty<\/a> at his arraignment in November. But at that hearing prosecutors hinted that a plea deal was being hammered out behind the scenes, noting in a filing that the parties were \u201cclose to reaching a resolution\u201d in his case and that there were unlikely to be further serious hearings until a potential change of plea or sentencing.<\/p>\n Azevedo announced his resignation from the San Leandro City Council on Monday, telling staff that he wants to focus on his family and legal issues according to press reports<\/a>. He was elected in 2020 and reelected in 2024.<\/p>\n The feds are targeting bigger fish in Oakland \u2014 and possibly beyond<\/p>\n Azevedo\u2019s case appears to be tied to allegations that former Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao and her partner Andre Jones accepted bribes<\/a> from David and Andy Duong in exchange for extending California Waste Solutions\u2019 contract with Oakland and purchasing modular housing units from Evolutionary Homes. Thao, Jones, and the Duongs were all indicted last year together. They all pleaded not guilty.<\/p>\n It\u2019s unclear what Azevedo might know that is relevant to the Oakland case, but he had proximity to some of the key players.<\/p>\n In August 2023, Azevedo was part of a trade delegation that traveled to Vietnam. The Vietnamese American Business Association<\/a>, which the Duongs control, sponsored the trip and paid for Azevedo\u2019s travel. Thao also went on the trip. Federal prosecutors stated that the family of an individual identified as Co-conspirator 1 controlled this business association, which indicates this is likely one of the Duongs. Azevedo admitted that the business association paid for his entire trip, including airfare, hotel, and meals for 10 days.<\/p>\n At a hearing last week, Thao\u2019s attorney, Jeffrey Tsai, told the judge overseeing the Oakland case that he is seeking information from prosecutors about an ex-Oakland city councilmember who allegedly engaged in unlawful activity with a person identified in court records as Co-conspirator 1, according to the East Bay Times<\/a>. Based on interviews and public records, Co-conspirator 1 is Mario Juarez.<\/p>\n Tsai told the judge that this activity involved illegal contributions by straw donors to get around campaign finance rules, the East Bay Times reported. Tsai\u2019s comments echo references made by prosecutors in earlier court filings about Andy Duong allegedly attempting to bribe other officials in Oakland and Alameda County.<\/p>\n It\u2019s unclear which former councilmember Tsai was talking about.<\/p>\n In 2019, the Oakland Public Ethics Commission accused the Duongs of running a widespread straw donor operation to funnel thousands of dollars to the campaigns of politicians they were legally barred from giving money to as city contractors. According to investigators, the Duongs used intermediaries to make $51,000 in illegal political contributions<\/a>. Some of those funds went to Oakland councilmembers, including Thao, who was the District 4 representative at the time, Lynette Gibson McElhaney, Rebecca Kaplan, Larry Reid, and Dan Kalb. At the time, Kaplan and Kalb told The Oaklandside that they were unaware that the payments were linked to a city contractor and would not have accepted funds if they had known.<\/p>\n Azevedo\u2019s next court hearing is Dec. 3.<\/p>\n “*” indicates required fields<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bryan Azevedo resigned from his seat on San Leandro\u2019s City Council on Monday, and on Wednesday he made…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":174205,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[25656,21212,20777,21213,21215,143,7115,145,144,4312],"class_list":{"0":"post-174204","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-oakland","8":"tag-andre-jones","9":"tag-andy-duong","10":"tag-bryan-azevedo","11":"tag-california-waste-solutions","12":"tag-david-duong","13":"tag-oakland","14":"tag-oakland-fbi-raids","15":"tag-oakland-headlines","16":"tag-oakland-news","17":"tag-sheng-thao"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174204\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/174205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}