{"id":206829,"date":"2026-03-06T05:25:06","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T05:25:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/206829\/"},"modified":"2026-03-06T05:25:06","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T05:25:06","slug":"orange-county-demolishes-unfinished-vietnam-war-memorial-mired-in-corruption-scandal-orange-county-register","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/206829\/","title":{"rendered":"Orange County demolishes unfinished Vietnam War memorial mired in corruption scandal \u2013 Orange County Register"},"content":{"rendered":"

An Orange County Public Works crew has demolished a Vietnam War memorial that was left unfinished in Mile Square Regional Park in Fountain Valley.<\/p>\n

In 2023, then-Supervisor Andrew Do allocated $1 million in First District discretionary funds to the nonprofit Viet America Society for the design and construction of the memorial.\u00a0 The memorial wall was built in January 2024, but \u201cgranite cladding and other cosmetic features\u201d were never finished, county spokesperson Molly Nichelson said.<\/p>\n

The memorial was sitting unfinished when the county sued Viet America Society in August 2024<\/a> for breach of contract and fraud for not completing the tribute or delivering on meals for the elderly and disabled people that the county had given millions in COVID relief money for when the FBI raided the homes of Do and the nonprofit\u2019s leaders<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The cost of demolition was roughly $13,000, Nichelson said. That is much less than previous estimates for what it would have taken to complete.<\/p>\n

First District Supervisor Janet Nguyen, who advocated for the demolition of the memorial, said Thursday that county officials decided to tear down the wall because it no longer served as an apt tribute to veterans.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis memorial is a disgrace to veterans and not the respect they deserve,\u201d she said in a statement. \u201cWe have been looking for alternative options, including a space at the new veteran\u2019s cemetery.\u201d<\/p>\n

Do is serving a five-year federal prison sentence<\/a> after agreeing to plead guilty to accepting more than $550,000 in bribes to direct millions of dollars in contracts and COVID-related funds to two nonprofits, including Viet America Society, which later employed Do\u2019s daughter as a condition of the bribery scheme. Peter Pham, the president of the nonprofit, has been indicted on multiple charges of wire fraud and concealment of money laundering.<\/p>\n

Pham\u2019s attorney has said he returned $150,000 of the $1 million earmarked for the memorial.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n

At a November press conference, Nguyen toured the memorial, pointing out that cracks had formed in the wall and much of the engraving remained incomplete.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s not a lot of documents on this site. We don\u2019t know what was spent, we don\u2019t know what materials were used, we don\u2019t know anything,\u201d Nguyen said at the time<\/a>, adding that additional improvements and meeting ADA compliance could cost up to $1 million.<\/p>\n

Repairing the wall would have cost the county between $168,000 to $420,000, and the engraving of names would add another $30,000 to $40,000, Nguyen said at the time.<\/p>\n

Nick Berardino, the president of the Veterans Alliance for Orange County, said he supports the decision to demolish and that he looks forward to working with Nguyen on building a new memorial that would not \u201cdiminish the honor\u201d of local veterans.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were always proud to have any memorial honoring the brave men and women who died for our country,\u201d Berardino said. \u201cBut this memorial became so tainted by the corrupt activities that, while we\u2019re sad to see it go, we certainly support its demolition\u00a0because we want to see those brave men and women in a positive light.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An Orange County Public Works crew has demolished a Vietnam War memorial that was left unfinished in Mile…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":206830,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,7,179,6735,23,611,4765,136],"class_list":["post-206829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-california","tag-community","tag-fountain-valley","tag-local-news","tag-orange-county","tag-orange-county-board-of-supervisors","tag-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206829","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=206829"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206829\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/206830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}