A forensic audit released by Orange County on Monday found ex-Supervisor Andrew Do and his top aide had a longstanding pattern of misspending public money far beyond the scandal that led to federal corruption charges and landed Do in prison.<\/p>\n
The report released Monday<\/a> was the first phase of a forensic audit the OC Board of Supervisors commissioned last fall into county contracts in the wake of LAist\u2019s investigation of the Do meal money scheme<\/a> and his corruption conviction. The audit is being conducted by the firm Weaver<\/a>.<\/p>\n The report details how Do and his chief of staff, Chris Wangsaporn, undermined procedures meant to prevent abuse of county money, while using their influence to steer taxpayer money to friends, family and businesses that quickly donated to his election campaigns \u2014 often with little information about the services being provided.<\/p>\n \u201cThe pattern of contracts being awarded to vendors that contributed to former Supervisor Do\u2019s political campaigns raises questions and concerns about potential \u2018pay-to-play\u2019 schemes,\u201d the report<\/a> states.<\/p>\n Keep up with LAist.<\/p>\n If you’re enjoying this article, you’ll love our daily newsletter, The LA Report. Each weekday, catch up on the 5 most pressing stories to start your morning in 3 minutes or less. <\/p>\n Supervisor Janet Nguyen, who was elected to replace Do in 2024, said in a statement that \u201cDo\u2019s federal bribery conviction was the tip of the iceberg\u201d and called on law enforcement to investigate.<\/p>\n \u201cFor years, I have known that Andrew Do was a criminal, acting as the Godfather of Little Saigon \u2014 strongarming political opponents and pressuring his minions to do more,\u201d Nguyen said. \u201cNow the county has evidence of all of it, and I\u2019m hoping the federal DOJ, FBI, state attorney general, the district attorney and the [California Fair Political Practices Commission] investigate.\u201d<\/p>\n [Click here to read the forensic audit report<\/a>.]<\/p>\n Do\u2019s attorney, Paul Meyer, declined to comment on the audit findings, saying that would be \u201cinappropriate.\u201d<\/p>\n Wangsaporn declined to speak with the auditors, according to the audit report. He has not returned LAist\u2019s multiple requests for comment over the past year and a half, including Monday.<\/p>\n The forensic auditors plan to present their findings at the Board of Supervisors\u2019 public meeting March 24.<\/p>\n More payments to Peter Pham<\/p>\n Among its many findings, the report found Do routed more money than previously reported to companies affiliated with Peter Pham, a central figure in the meal fraud scandal that sent Do to federal prison.<\/p>\n The report notes Do routed money for county events in his district to businesses linked to Pham. One was Aloha Financial Investment \u2014 the same company that received most of the diverted meal money in the corruption scheme and paid the down payment on a house for Do\u2019s daughter. The other was Pham\u2019s construction company, Hua Development, which also did business as HD Construction and HD Entertainment.<\/p>\n The findings echo an LAist review of county contract records, which found over $500,000 in county funds were directed to Hua Development and Aloha Financial Investment \u2014 largely for events in Do\u2019s district dating back to 2016 and for public service announcements during COVID.<\/p>\n Pham\u2019s construction company, auditors noted, also \u201cappeared to have performed a kitchen remodel of former Supervisor Do\u2019s personal residence in March 2021.\u201d LAist discovered the renovation work in permit records and reported on it last year<\/a>.<\/p>\n At the time, Do was routing millions of county meal dollars to Pham\u2019s nonprofit, Viet America Society, in the bribery scheme that later led to Do\u2019s criminal conviction. Do admitted in his plea deal that nearly $8 million in meal funds to the nonprofit were diverted, including $385,000 to purchase the home for Do\u2019s daughter.<\/p>\n The new report notes the forensic audit is limited because auditors were not able to make non-county officials and organizations provide documents or answer questions.<\/p>\n More payments to 360 Clinic<\/p>\n Additionally, the auditors found Do authorized an $814,650 county payment to 360 Clinic \u2014 the county\u2019s main provider of COVID-19 tests \u2014 despite concerns from county staff that the company was double billing. The findings largely echo LAist\u2019s previous reporting on the issue<\/a>. In all, auditors wrote, the county paid 360 Clinic $3.4 million for uncollectable claims, despite the fact that state and federal law required private insurance or the federal government to fully pay for all coronavirus testing claims at the time.<\/p>\n An internal county report obtained by LAist<\/a> last year found that 360 Clinic had double- and triple-billed for some testing services. In the report released Monday, auditors found the company submitted more than 4,000 potential duplicate COVID-19 testing claims, with the same patient name and same date of service.<\/p>\n The auditors wrote that they examined documents indicating insurance providers had already paid for some of the claims submitted to the county for repayment. Other claims were for services that weren\u2019t eligible for reimbursement, the auditors wrote.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile additional review on a claim-by-claim basis would be required to quantify the extent of such denied claims, it is questionable at best as to whether these denied claims should have been invoiced to the county,\u201d they wrote.<\/p>\n \u2018Not to be questioned\u2019<\/p>\n The audit found Do and Wangsaporn had a pattern of steering contracts and grants to businesses that either employed an immediate family member of Do, contributed to his political campaigns shortly after being awarded a contract, provided a media platform for Do or were involved in the annual Tet and Moon festivals in Do\u2019s district.<\/p>\n Do and Wangsaporn \u201cwere very involved in procurement decisions and established a culture where decisions related to District 1 contracts were not to be questioned,\u201d the report states. County procurement staff, it adds, were \u201cconcerned that they would receive a phone call\u201d from Do or Wangsaporn \u201cif their requests were not approved.\u201d<\/p>\n Among the decisions Do and his chief of staff impacted were \u201clump sum advanced payments\u201d to vendors, \u201cdirectives to pay vendors and contractors for invoices with open issues under review and the selection of vendors and grant recipients.\u201d<\/p>\n Board\u2019s approach obscured money flows<\/p>\n The county\u2019s spending during the COVID-19 pandemic was obscured by the process the Board of Supervisors set up, auditors found.<\/p>\n Contracts were approved without competitive bidding or public approval by the board, which \u201climited visibility of purchase amounts and vendors selected,\u201d the report states.<\/p>\n During the pandemic, Do and the other county supervisors set up a process where millions in taxpayer spending was directed without the usual public transparency<\/a> on meeting agendas to show where money was going.<\/p>\n Do used the board-approved closed-door process to quietly direct millions of dollars<\/a> to the nonprofit at the center of the meal scheme.<\/p>\n The audit also found that the county lacked policies requiring invoices detail what taxpayers were paying for. Do\u2019s office had a common pattern of issuing contracts where payments were made on invoices that had few details about the services provided or itemizations of costs, the report states.<\/p>\n How to reach me<\/p>\n If you have a tip, you can reach me on Signal. My username is ngerda.47.<\/p>\n Supervisor cites reforms in the scandal\u2019s wake<\/p>\n \u201cAs expected, the most recent audit again exposes criminal Andrew Do for habitually using his position of power to financially reward family, friends and donors through crony capitalist contracts at the expense of Orange County taxpayers,\u201d Supervisor Katrina Foley said in a statement.<\/p>\n Foley said she and other supervisors have implemented reforms to contract policies, \u201caimed at increasing competitive bidding and [reducing] opportunities for corruption.\u201d<\/p>\n She called on the county to put in place additional safeguards recommended by the auditors to “further protect taxpayers and prevent this type of misconduct from happening again.\u201d<\/p>\n Supervisor Don Wagner said the audit findings show \u201cformer Supervisor Do\u2019s corruption goes beyond that for which he is now serving federal prison time,\u201d adding that he\u2019s \u201cdeeply disturbed.\u201d<\/p>\n Wagner defended Do<\/a> at a January 2024 supervisors\u2019 meeting after reports that Do had awarded millions to Viet America Society without disclosing its close ties to his daughter<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are no, nor should there be, questions or challenges as to that particular grant of money because there’s nothing illegal about what was done,\u201d Wagner said at the time<\/a>, while blocking a reform proposal<\/a> to require supervisors to disclose close family connections to groups they award money to.<\/p>\n Do ultimately pleaded guilty to bribery and is serving a five-year prison sentence.<\/p>\n LAist reporter Jill Replogle contributed reporting to this story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A forensic audit released by Orange County on Monday found ex-Supervisor Andrew Do and his top aide had…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":214391,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,2084,98353,97486,611,35040],"class_list":{"0":"post-214390","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-anaheim","8":"tag-anaheim","9":"tag-anaheim-headlines","10":"tag-anaheim-news","11":"tag-andrew-do","12":"tag-chris-wangsaporn","13":"tag-corruption-scandal","14":"tag-orange-county","15":"tag-viet-america-society"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214390","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=214390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214390\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/214391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}