Former San Leandro City Councilmember Bryan Azevedo filed a guilty plea in federal court Wednesday in the corruption case that also ensnared former Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao, making him now a potential witness against her.<\/p>\n
We first learned the name<\/a> of San Leandro City Councilmember Bryan Azevedo last summer, when Azevedo received official notice that he was under investigation by federal agents. Azevedo, like former Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao, was among a group of East Bay elected officials who went on a sponsored, probably fairly luxury trip to Vietnam in August 2023, paid for by the Vietnamese American Business Association.<\/p>\n That business group is led by East Bay waste-management tycoon David Duong, who with his son Andy Duong, as we know, was indicted alongside Thao in January 2025<\/a> on bribery and corruption charges.<\/p>\n Azevedo was then charged by the feds in October<\/a> for taking bribes, and for lying to FBI agents about a $2,000 envelope of cash. It was immediately clear that Azevedo was looking to cut a deal with the feds, and a US attorney Abraham Fine said as much to a judge in November, saying, that prosecutors were, “very close to reaching a resolution for this case.”<\/p>\n That resolution is now taking shape, as Bay Area News Group reports<\/a> on Azevedo’s Wednesday guilty plea in federal court. Azevedo reportedly said little in court, and the prosecutor, Fine, also said little, per the news group. <\/p>\n Azevedo faces a maximum of 25 years for the two counts against him, though as the news group notes, he’s unlikely to serve much time at all, especially if he cooperating with prosecutors in the case against Thao, her romantic partner Andre Jones, and the Duongs.<\/p>\n Those four faces multiple charges, and they have all pleaded not guilty, with a trial still pending. Thao allegedly made numerous promises to the Duongs, including contracts involving their waste-management company and a tiny-home startup they launched called Evolutionary Homes. In exchange, the Duong’s allegedly created a no-show job for Jones, for which he was paid a salary of $95,000.<\/p>\n The indictment further alleged that Thao had been seeking a bribe of $3 million<\/a>, but did not get it.<\/p>\n Azevedo previously entered a not-guilty plea<\/a> in November, and as Bay Area News Group noted, he gave a series of strange TV interviews in recent months in which he denied wrongdoing and referred to Andy Duong as a longtime friend and a “great guy.”<\/p>\n Azevedo resigned from his seat on the San Leandro City Council on Tuesday, one day ahead of his court appearance.<\/p>\n The corruption case has bizarrely similar parallels to the one that unfolded several years earlier in San Francisco, including the involvement of a tiny-home startup, and waste-management contracts. In that case, the ringleader of the corruption was former SF Public Works chief Mohammed Nuru, who is currently serving a seven-year sentence<\/a> for taking bribes, and more.<\/p>\n That probe ensnared multiple SF city officials and contractors, as the Oakland case seems also likely to do.<\/p>\n