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Family at Center of Oakland FBI Raid Backed Thao to Secure Lucrative Contracts, DA Says

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U.S. postal inspectors check documents at a home tied to David Duong, one of the multiple properties searched by law enforcement that included residences to members of a politically connected family who run the citys contracted recycling company, California Waste Solutions, in Oakland on June 20, 2024. A court filing this week by the Alameda County district attorney’s office connects ousted Mayor Sheng Thao to California Waste Solutions’ alleged campaign bribes for the first time. (Ray Chavez/MediaNews Group/The Mercury News via Getty Images)

Oakland’s embattled recycling company, which has gained notoriety after the FBI raided multiple locations associated with its owner in June, allegedly supported ousted Mayor Sheng Thao in her 2022 election bid in an attempt to secure lucrative city contracts, according to the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office.

The raid, which also targeted Thao, who was recalled by Oakland voters last month, spurred months of speculation about her involvement in a probe into a wide web of the city’s political players. In a court filing this week, the DA directly connected Thao, who has repeatedly claimed she is not the target of the FBI’s investigation, to California Waste Solutions’ alleged campaign bribes for the first time.

The District Attorney’s office alleges that Mario Juarez, a former Oakland city council candidate who is being charged with grand theft related to Thao’s 2022 campaign, acted as a “conduit” between Thao, Cal Waste and another city-contracted company. The office, which Pamela Price led until she was recalled in November, said in a court filing responding to Juarez’s request that his theft case be thrown out due to vindictive prosecution by Price, who left office on Dec. 5.

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Juarez is accused of writing more than $50,000 worth of bad checks to a marketing company for creating mailers for Thao’s 2022 mayoral campaign. Kwixuan Maloof, the senior assistant district attorney listed on the filing, alleges that Juarez moved money around to avoid paying for the fliers, which targeted Thao’s two biggest opponents, Loren Taylor and Ignacio De La Fuente, in the days before the election.

The new filing alleges that days before Juarez commissioned the fliers, he received $125,000 from Cal Waste and ABC Security Services, which provides security to City Hall and other city buildings.

A California Waste Solutions worker empties recycling bins in the Rockridge neighborhood on April 22, 2020, in Oakland. A campaign finance investigation into the city’s curbside recycling contractor has received renewed attention since the FBI raids. (Yalonda M. James/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)

On Oct. 17, 2022, Juarez received a $75,000 check from Cal Waste and another for $50,000 from ABC Security on Oct. 20, according to Maloof. Both were deposited into the same bank account that he used to write checks to Butterfly Direct Marketing days later.

In the days after Thao’s win, the district attorney’s office alleges that Juarez received another $170,000 from ABC Security, Cal Waste and members of the politically connected Duong family that own it. Cal Waste’s headquarters and the home of the company’s founder, David Duong, and his son Andy, were raided by the FBI in June.

He also wrote two checks totaling $7,500 to Thao’s longtime partner, Andre Jones, immediately following the election.

“These companies have valuable contracts with the city of Oakland and an interest in the election of then-candidate for mayor, Sheng Thao,” the filing says. “Mr. Juarez’s subsequent use and distribution of these funds suggests Defendant Juarez was essentially a conduit for these companies to help the mayor win and preserve and enhance the companies’ access to tax-payer funded contracts.”

Another connection made in the new filing is to Attorney General Rob Bonta, who Maloof says would be reassigned the case if the judge were to find a conflict of interest in the DA’s office.

Maloof says Bonta should be disqualified from prosecuting the case based on conflict of interest law because of his close political ties to Juarez. Juarez donated to Bonta’s 2014 and 2018 assembly campaigns, and Bonta helped a now-defunct energy company Juarez co-owned secure a $3.4 million grant from the California Energy Commission.

While Monday’s filing connected some dots, there is still a web of other allegations swirling in the ongoing FBI probe.

Here’s a timeline of what’s happened so far:

Questions exploded about the Duongs after three locations they’re affiliated with were targeted in June’s FBI raid. They had already been under investigation by California’s Fair Political Practices Commission and the Oakland Public Ethics Commission since 2019 for an alleged straw donation scheme.

Andy Duong and Cal Waste are believed to have used other peoples’ names to illegally donate to local campaigns between 2016 and 2018, according to a probable cause report from the FPPC and Oakland PEC filed in 2021. It cites at least 93 donations, totaling over $76,000, to Thao, Oakland City Councilmembers Rebecca Kaplan and Dan Kalb, and other Oakland politicians.

David Duong is the founder and CEO of California Waste Solutions and Vietnam Waste Solutions. (Brian Watt/KQED)

Juarez, who has a long history of somewhat shady business dealings, including 12 notices of state and federal tax liens against him since 2008, also quickly became a key player in the probe because of his public falling out with the Duongs — his former business partners — and the grand theft case against him.

On Dec. 11, the owner of Butterfly Direct Marketing filed a police report accusing Juarez of failing to pay for the product. The DA’s office filed grand theft charges against Juarez in January.

Juarez, who has been a longtime political opponent of Price, pleaded not guilty in April, and his lawyers filed a motion to dismiss the case in October. He alleges that Price’s prosecution was retaliatory after he declined to donate to her anti-recall campaign.

His attorney says that in early January, Juarez, members of the Duong family and Price gathered at the address associated with Cal Waste after the funeral of a slain Oakland police officer.

“She explained that as the district attorney for Alameda County, she could help Mr. Juarez, but that to get her help, he would ‘need to show love and support to her,’” the motion says. “Specifically, she wanted $25,000.00 in cash from him to support her campaign against the ongoing recall effort against her.”

Maloof’s response this week disputes that conversation took place and claims that Price’s office actually decided to charge Juarez in August 2023 after receiving the police report in May, but that the case had “somehow fallen through the cracks.” After the victim called to inquire about their progress in January, the office located the file and began the prosecution process, according to Maloof.

He further asserts that Juarez’s bank records, which show him moving money between two accounts for days following his payment to Butterfly Direct Marketing, and his financial dealings with Cal Waste, ABC Security, and Thao’s partner Jones, indicate his “intent to defraud the victim in this check fraud case.”

The Duongs and Juarez spearheaded a business venture together in 2022, but they appear to have had a falling out amidst the FBI probe.

David Duong’s daughter, Kristina, registered a company in 2022 called Evolutionary Homes, which was designed to build homes out of shipping containers for unhoused people. Juarez is named as the organizer of the company, which later sought Oakland city contracts and shared an address with Cal Waste in state records.

In 2024, though, Juarez fell off the Evolutionary Homes’ filings, and things between the business partners appear to sour.

In May, Juarez and the Duongs filed police reports telling very different stories about an encounter at the Cal Waste office. Juarez says he was robbed, while the Duongs assert Juarez threatened them.

A few weeks later, police responded to a shooting at Juarez’s home, which his lawyer told the San Francisco Chronicle was an attempt on his life.

The case against Juarez, and his relationship with Thao and the Duongs, is thought to be related to the federal probe into Oakland, which drew public attention following June’s FBI raids. Five days later, a federal grand jury subpoenaed city records referencing Cal Waste, Evolutionary Homes, Jones, the 2022 election, and a few other people and businesses.

In July, it issued a second subpoena asking for much of the same information, as well as some Oakland police records, including reports made against the Duongs since April 2024.

But as of Friday, no charges have been filed related to the probe or raids. The judge in Juarez’s case against Alameda County has not issued a decision on whether the case will be dismissed.

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