![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/David-Duong-trial-scaled.jpg\")
Co-defendant David Duong waved his hand to people outside Ronald V. Dellums Courthouse in Oakland after opening statements of the criminal jury trial on Oct. 14, 2026. (Carly Nairn\/Courthouse News Service)<\/p>\nOAKLAND, Calif. (CN) \u2014 A prosecutor claimed Wednesday during opening statements on the first day of jury trial that former Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao betrayed her office when she supposedly accepted bribes from Oakland businessmen in exchange for promises of lucrative city contracts.<\/p>\n
Thao, 41, was indicted along with co-defendants Andre Jones, 55, Thao\u2019s longtime romantic partner, Oakland businessman David Duong, 68 and his son Andy Duong, 37, on eight counts between them, including conspiracy, bribery, fraud and making a false statement to a government official, in what the government described as a corruption scheme of \u201cpaid and accepted bribes for the promise of future influence.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was powerful, but she was also corrupt,\u201d Assistant U.S. Attorney Abraham Fine told the 18-person jury. \u201cShe was a public official who put her power up for sale.\u201d<\/p>\n
With her signature no-nonsense demeanor, Chief U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, a Barack Obama appointee, instructed the jurors not to take the attorneys\u2019 opening statements as evidence in the criminal case.<\/p>\n
Thao faces a maximum sentence of 95 years in prison if convicted of all charges. All four co-defendants have pleaded not guilty.<\/p>\n
The packed courtroom at Ronald V. Dellums Federal Courthouse in Oakland listened intently as Fine said the jury would hear testimony from the government\u2019s key witness, Mario Juarez, who ran a modular-home startup with the Duongs called Evolutionary Homes. Juarez pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit a bribe in exchange for his cooperation with the prosecution and a more lenient sentence. The defense called Juarez \u201cthe narrator of the Justice Department\u2019s story\u201d and \u201ca volatile political figure.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thao\u2019s attorney, Jeffrey Tsai, characterized his client as \u201cthe real Sheng Thao, a mother, a daughter, a sister and an aunt,\u201d an Oakland renter who didn\u2019t live \u201ca luxury lifestyle\u201d that a bribery scheme would afford.<\/p>\n
Co-defendant David Duong waved his hand to people outside Ronald V. Dellums Courthouse in Oakland after opening statements of the criminal jury trial on Oct. 14, 2026. (Carly Nairn\/Courthouse News Service)<\/p>\n
The prosecution\u2019s case hinges largely on the confession and cooperation of Mario Juarez, a former business partner of the Duongs, whose credibility the defense will likely challenge.<\/p>\n
During opening statements, Fine said the jury would listen to audio recordings, examine text messages, emails, Apple notes and checks from California Waste Solutions for $75,000 to one of Juarez\u2019s shell companies for a negative mailer campaign against Thao\u2019s opponents in the lead-up to the 2022 Oakland mayoral election and five-figure checks to Jones from Evolutionary Homes, with the subject line filled in as \u201cadvance,\u201d are proof of a bribery scheme.<\/p>\n
In 2022, Juarez started Evolutionary Homes, a shipping container shelter company, with the Duongs. Federal prosecutors say the Duongs bribed Thao and Jones to secure a city contract for Evolutionary Homes for up to 300 units at $300,000 a unit, as well as an extension of California Waste Solutions\u2019 city contract.<\/p>\n
In 2024, Juarez gave information to the FBI after a falling-out with the Duongs. The FBI raided the defendants\u2019 homes and the California Waste Solutions building in June 2024.<\/p>\n
Thao and Jones\u2019 attorney Mark Goldrosen said that even though they lived together, the two co-defendants kept separate bank accounts and never exchanged texts about money connected to the Duongs. Goldrosen said Jones has a legitimate job with Evolutionary Homes, as a government liaison, and payments to him by the company \u2014 checks as large as $35,000 \u2014 were advances on commissions for future sales of the housing units.<\/p>\n
David Duong\u2019s attorney Jeff Schenk told the jury of ten men and eight women that his client wasn\u2019t aware of any bribery scheme and wasn\u2019t involved in funding one.<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/signs-thao-trial-scaled.jpg\")
Members of the East Bay Asian American community hold up signs outside the trial for Sheng Thao and three co-defendnants. (Carly Nairn\/Courthouse News)<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t agree to a deal you don\u2019t know about,\u201d Schenk told the jury.<\/p>\n
Schenk said the jury would see, through texts and other documents, that Duong was \u201cacting like a businessman\u201d when he checked to make sure Jones signed a contract before handing over a check. A contract, the defense claims, was in Juarez\u2019s possession after Jones signed it but hasn\u2019t since been brought up as potential evidence.<\/p>\n
After Wednesday\u2019s proceedings and mingled among TV news cameras and reporters, several dozen members of the Asian American Oakland community held signs in support of David Duong outside the courthouse.<\/p>\n
The entire defense team claimed the government\u2019s case relies on the words of Juarez, a \u201cconsummate hustler\u201d whose \u201cnever-ending search to be a political kingmaker\u201d led him to make up the scheme and implicate Thao, Jones and Duongs. \u00a0Andy Duong\u2019s attorney Winston Chan said the story of the scheme was revenge for the Duongs questioning Juarez about where most of David\u2019s $750,000 investment in Evolutionary Homes went.<\/p>\n
Witness testimony for the prosecution\u2019s case starts Thursday.<\/p>\n
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