{"id":384402,"date":"2026-07-03T01:13:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T01:13:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/384402\/"},"modified":"2026-07-03T01:13:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T01:13:09","slug":"county-staffer-was-paid-by-family-at-center-of-oakland-fbi-corruption-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/384402\/","title":{"rendered":"County staffer was paid by family at center of Oakland FBI corruption case"},"content":{"rendered":"

The FBI\u2019s East Bay corruption investigation has already led to the indictment<\/a> of Oakland\u2019s former mayor, Sheng Thao; her romantic partner; and two prominent businesspeople. The case\u2019s scope expanded this year, with San Leandro Councilmember Bryan Azevedo pleading guilty<\/a> to accepting a bribe.<\/p>\n

Now, a veteran reporter has revealed that the co-host of his local politics podcast was a paid consultant for the businesspeople at the center of the FBI\u2019s case. And he has claimed that in 2023, those businesspeople, David and Andy Duong, tried to quash reporting they didn\u2019t like by offering the reporter, through his co-host, money.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The co-host, Shawn Wilson, is chief of staff to Alameda County Supervisor David Haubert. Wilson confirmed to us this week that he facilitated a sponsorship offer but denied it was to influence any reporting. And he confirmed that he accepted money from the Duongs for unrelated public relations work. Haubert has not been accused of any wrongdoing.<\/p>\n

On Monday, Tavares, who founded East Bay Insiders<\/a> and writes its newsletter and hosts its podcast, accused<\/a> Wilson of what appeared to be an attempt to help the Duongs bury a potential story he was developing about a Vietnam trip<\/a> the Duongs had arranged for local politicians three years ago.<\/p>\n

Tavares says he never accepted any money from the Duongs and didn\u2019t alter his coverage of them or anyone else as part of any quid pro quo. But he told The Oaklandside he worried he risked losing the trust of his audience because of his former collaboration with Wilson.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are my people, my customers, and I let them down. I feel this guilt,\u201d Tavares said in an interview. \u201cPeople might think I\u2019m sketchy by association.\u201d<\/p>\n

East Bay Insiders has about 6,000 subscribers, Tavares said. His newsletter and chatty podcast are closely followed by local politicos as they often serve up scoops on controversies in corners of Alameda County where traditional media coverage has withered. Tavares started podcasting in 2018, calling his show \u201cSteve Tavares Is Angry.\u201d The next year, he and Wilson started the \u201cEast Bay Insiders\u201d podcast<\/a>, and the two appeared on dozens of episodes together over seven years.<\/p>\n

In an interview, Wilson said that he did bring a sponsorship offer to Tavares, but flatly denied that it was an attempt to squash a story.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt couldn\u2019t be further from the truth,\u201d Wilson said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Oaklandside could not independently verify Tavares\u2019 claim that Wilson\u2019s sponsorship offer was linked to a request to pull back on a story. Tavares said it was the timing of the offer, less than two weeks after he filed his records request, and the relationship between Wilson, the Duongs, and their associate Mario Juarez \u2014 a Fruitvale businessperson and former City Council candidate who had partnered<\/a> with the Duongs in a shipping container home company, Evolutionary Homes \u2014 that made him draw the connection.<\/p>\n

According to Wilson, he received a call from Juarez asking if Tavares would accept a sponsorship. Wilson said he couldn\u2019t recall exactly who the sponsorship was on behalf of, but he said Juarez \u201cimplied that that was from California Waste Solutions.\u201d Wilson said he relayed the offer to Tavares.<\/p>\n

CWS is the Duongs\u2019 curbside recycling company, which contracts with Oakland. In their January 2025 indictment, federal prosecutors alleged<\/a> that David and Andy Duong bribed Thao, partly in pursuit of a lucrative contract extension for CWS, and partly seeking contracts for Evolutionary Homes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Wilson confirmed that his consulting business was hired by the Duongs to do public relations work in early 2024 and said it was all legal and proper. He said he was hired to handle matters unrelated to the sponsorship offer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know how he\u2019s painting this as something out of the ordinary,\u201d Wilson said of Tavares\u2019 post this week.<\/p>\n

He said he never hid the fact that he did PR work for the Duongs from Tavares or his boss, Haubert.<\/p>\n

\u201cI divulged it on my Form 700,\u201d he said, referring to a form government officials must file disclosing their sources of income.<\/p>\n

We asked Wilson for a copy of the disclosure form he filed showing the payment from the Duongs. Wilson said he could not locate it and that he has asked the clerk of the Board of Supervisors for assistance.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Through a public records request to the county, The Oaklandside obtained Wilson\u2019s Form 700 for 2024<\/a> but could find no reference to payment from the Duongs or their company, California Waste Solutions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Haubert did not respond to an interview request.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tavares joked that his proximity to people who\u2019ve done business with the Duongs may have led the FBI to put him under the microscope.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomebody told me, \u2018The feds probably checked your bank accounts,\u201d Tavares said. \u201cI joked, they probably think, \u2018Man, this guy spends too much money on coffee.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Tavares claims he only slowly pieced together Wilson\u2019s involvement with the Duongs<\/p>\n

The August 2023 Vietnam trip that had sparked Tavares\u2019 interest was hosted by the Duongs\u2019 Vietnamese American Business Association<\/a> and included numerous East Bay officials, most prominently then-Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao, Port of Oakland leaders, and lesser-known elected representatives like San Leandro\u2019s Bryan Azevedo.<\/p>\n

Tavares told The Oaklandside that he\u2019d heard rumors of wild misconduct by members of the East Bay delegation and in December 2023, he asked the city of San Leandro for records about Azevedo\u2019s participation in the junket. Later that same month, Tavares said, Wilson called him and, out of the blue, offered a $2,000-per-month newsletter sponsorship from California Waste Solutions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Wilson, Tavares wrote, later called it a \u201cnice Christmas present.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"A screenshot from the East Bay Insiders website promoting an episode with Steve Tavares and his then co-host Shawn Wilson. The pair appeared together on the podcast for seven years before having a falling out. Credit: East Bay Insiders<\/a><\/p>\n

Tavares told The Oaklandside that East Bay Insiders never took any money from the Duongs or their company.<\/p>\n

California Waste Solutions and attorneys for both David and Andy Duong did not respond to questions about Tavares\u2019 claims.<\/p>\n

Tavares writes about how, after the unexpected sponsorship offer, he slowly became convinced of a connection between that offer and the public records request he\u2019d sent to San Leandro. In his newsletter and on his podcast, Tavares claims Thao and David Duong somehow became aware of his records request and suspected he was working on a story about the rumors surrounding the trip.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He claims an unnamed source told him that Thao, fearing bad publicity, was threatening to \u201cwalk away from\u201d a multi-million-dollar business deal the Duongs were seeking with Oakland \u2014 the sale of shipping container homes<\/a> to house homeless people \u2014 if a salacious story ran on the Vietnam trip. The Oaklandside has not been able to independently verify that claim.<\/p>\n

A lawyer for Thao did not respond to questions.<\/p>\n

Tavares claims that between December 2023 and April 2024, Juarez<\/a>, the Fruitvale businessperson who had partnered with the Duongs, started calling him, trying to follow up on some kind of \u201cbusiness proposal.\u201d Tavares says he never answered his phone, but Juarez sent texts about \u201cbig $.\u201d<\/p>\n

In May 2024, Tavares said, he and Juarez finally spoke over the phone. Juarez was no longer offering any kind of deal. Now, according to Tavares, Juarez was making accusations about what had happened during the Vietnam trip and asking Tavares to report on it. By then, Juarez had had an explosive falling-out<\/a> with the Duongs and had become a key informant<\/a> in the FBI case against them and Thao.<\/p>\n

Juarez did not respond to a call and texts from The Oaklandside for this story.<\/p>\n

Tavares told us on Monday that he had tried to report on the off-color rumors surrounding the Vietnam trip, but he couldn\u2019t substantiate the claims. The public records he obtained from San Leandro revealed nothing of significance. (He eventually wrote about the rumors in April of last year.)<\/p>\n

In his reporting this week, Tavares says that when he told Juarez he couldn\u2019t do a story, Juarez became frustrated and ended the call.<\/p>\n

Soon after that call, the FBI raided Thao and the Duong\u2019s homes, and the sordid allegations of a corruption scheme and bitter business disputes involving Juarez, the Duongs, Thao, and her partner Andre Jones started to surface.<\/p>\n

\u2018The whole story was spiraling out of control\u2019<\/p>\n

\"\"The Alameda County administrative building in downtown Oakland. Wilson works for District 1 Supervisor David Haubert. Credit: Natalie Orenstein\/The Oaklandside.<\/p>\n

Wilson told us the work he did for the Duongs wasn\u2019t related to East Bay Insiders or anything Tavares was reporting on, and that Tavares had never raised concerns about any of his other consulting clients.<\/p>\n

Wilson said David Duong and Juarez contacted him to discuss crafting a public narrative for California Waste Solutions to help the company pursue new garbage contracts.<\/p>\n

While he told us he couldn\u2019t recall the date, Wilson said Duong and Juarez drove out to meet him in Livermore, where they discussed the PR proposal. Tavares, again citing an unnamed source, wrote in his post that Azevedo, then still a San Leandro councilmember, joined Juarez and Duong on the drive, though he didn\u2019t join the meeting. Wilson said he did not recall Azevedo having come along on the trip.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Wilson also said he had been unaware at the time that Tavares had filed a public records request related to the Vietnam trip.<\/p>\n

The Duongs agreed to pay Wilson $10,000 as part of a six-month contract running from January to June 2024, Wilson said. He insisted he made no secret of this agreement.<\/p>\n

In his story this week and in an interview with The Oaklandside, Tavares said that in April 2025, a local TV news reporter asked to meet him in a coffee shop. The reporter confronted him, saying he\u2019d heard from a source that Tavares took $250,000 to kill the Vietnam story. Tavares told us he didn\u2019t take any money from the Duongs, let alone $250,000.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis whole story was spiraling out of control and I had no handle on what exactly was going on,\u201d Tavares wrote in his newsletter this week.<\/p>\n

Tavares said he confronted Wilson two months later about his work for the Duongs. \u201cI proposed what I believed was the simplest solution. Come on the podcast. Disclose the payment publicly,\u201d Tavares wrote.<\/p>\n

That disclosure never appears to have happened. Wilson co-hosted the podcast for the last time in June 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tavares told us he had started noticing other situations in which Wilson\u2019s roles as a government official, a private consultant, and a podcast host appeared to conflict, underscoring his decision to cut ties with his former co-host.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tavares began seeing Wilson as more than just an \u201cinsightful, chatty insider.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wilson said he also didn\u2019t want to keep working with Tavares, because he\u2019d grown tired of his co-host criticizing public officials Wilson works with.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt became very difficult for me to do it anymore,\u201d Wilson said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tavares told us that his relationship with Wilson has interfered with other reporting he has wanted to do. He was planning to report on allegations made by an Alameda County resident, Kiersten Skov, but felt conflicted because of Wilson\u2019s alleged involvement. Skov had accused<\/a> Wilson of attempting to bribe her to get her to stop complaining about a wrongful fee related to garbage service in unincorporated Alameda County.<\/p>\n

Tavares said he decided it made more sense to let another news outlet break the story. Last week, Skov held a press conference<\/a> last week outlining her claims against Wilson, claims she repeated in testimony to a state Assembly committee<\/a> on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Wilson said Skov\u2019s allegations about him are politically motivated. He declined to address them but said he is hiring attorneys to address the \u201cborderline defamation of character.\u201d He also said that he never told Tavares what to write or not to write on his blog.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He lamented the collapse of their partnership. \u201cIt\u2019s unfortunate that it\u2019s come to this,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cPolitics is getting in the way of what\u2019s actually true and what\u2019s actually false. It\u2019s pretty sad.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tavares has harsher words for his former podcast co-host, saying he remains especially frustrated by Wilson\u2019s ties to the Duongs.<\/p>\n

He said Wilson may describe his business dealings with California Waste Solutions as \u201c100% legit,\u201d but \u201cSupervisor\u2019s aide took money from people involved in FBI case\u201d is \u201ca major headline.\u201d<\/p>\n

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