Thao trial opens with fiery allegations, strenuous disavowals

Federal prosecutors sought to portray former Mayor Sheng Thao as a greedy politician “who put her own monetary interest above the people that she was supposed to serve,” as a high-profile corruption trial got underway in downtown Oakland on Wednesday.

The government and defense attorneys for Thao, Andre Jones, and David and Andy Duong each began making their cases to a jury of 12, in a courtroom packed shoulder-to-shoulder with media and members of the public.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Abraham Fine described an alleged scheme first presented in a January 2025 indictment . Standing behind a podium in the courtroom, he showed jurors photos of the defendants and excerpts from text conversations between them, including some eye-catching exchanges.

In the run-up to the 2022 mayoral election, for example, the Fruitvale businessman and local political insider Mario Juarez texted Andy Duong, “So we may go to jail…but we’re $100 million richer.” Andy responded, “lmfao,” and, “money buys everything.”

The context of that text exchange, according to the government, was a conspiracy in which the Duongs helped Thao get elected and paid Jones $95,000. This was allegedly in exchange for Thao promising to help the Duongs’ recycling company win lucrative city business, influence appointments to powerful city posts, and win millions in city contracts for their tiny-home company, Evolutionary Homes, which they’d founded with Juarez.

Fine showed the jury checks that Juarez allegedly gave to Jones on behalf of the Duongs for a no-show job. He shared photos of Thao with the other defendants, including at her inauguration party in 2023, during a meeting at California Waste Solutions, having dinner with the Duongs and Juarez at a Berkeley restaurant, touring Evolutionary Homes’ showroom, and flying business class to Vietnam as part of a trade delegation coordinated by the Duongs in the summer of 2023.

Fine revealed that Cecilia Mendez, Juarez’s former romantic partner, recorded Evolutionary Homes board meetings for note-taking.

One of those recordings, he said, includes a discussion about Thao lagging on getting Oakland to buy Evolutionary Homes’ tiny houses — which the company positioned as a solution to the homelessness crisis. According to Fine, David Duong says at the meeting that “a deal is a deal,” but the company should work to make sure Thao could avoid political trouble with the purchase.

Evolutionary Homes failed to secure a contract from Oakland, however, and the Duongs and Juarez had a dramatic falling out in the spring of 2024. Weeks later, federal agents raided the homes of Thao, Jones, and the Duongs.

One promise that Thao allegedly made did come to fruition, Fine told the jury. The Duongs and Juarez wanted Thao to appoint Larry Gallegos , a longtime city of Oakland employee, to a powerful job where he could help steer a contract toward Evolutionary Homes. According to Fine, the same night that Thao had dinner with Juarez and the Duongs to reaffirm their deal, she called Oakland’s acting city administrator and ordered him to appoint Gallegos as the interim deputy director of the city’s housing department.

David, Fine told jurors, issued the final approval for all aspects of the scheme: “Nothing happened without David Duong’s say-so.”

Prosecutors appear to be aware that Juarez’s credibility is potentially a weak point in their case. Fine characterized Juarez as a longtime “fixer” for the Duongs who did their “dirty work,” and described in detail the role he played in their bribery scheme. “You will hear and see that he is no angel,” Fine said.

Juarez has already pleaded guilty, according to court records, and has been cooperating with the government.

Prosecutors plan to call several people to testify, including Leigh Hanson, Thao’s former chief of staff, Gallegos, and Jestin Johnson, Oakland’s former city administrator. According to Fine, Johnson will testify that Thao directed him multiple times to meet with David, and that Evolutionary Homes was the only homeless housing vendor she told him to visit.

In court Wednesday, Thao, Jones, and the Duongs sat at a table with their attorneys, remaining expressionless except for brief moments when they each stood up as they were introduced to the jurors.

Thao’s attorney, Jeffrey Tsai, painted a picture of Thao as a hard worker, someone who survived homelessness and domestic violence and rose through Oakland politics to become mayor, leading the city through a series of crises.

Thao never asked for nor accepted any bribes, Tsai said, and federal agents don’t have any evidence of her squirreling away cash in her closet or maintaining secret bank accounts. “She didn’t get herself an exotic new sports car — she drives the same Hyundai Santa Fe she did when she was a mayor,” Tsai said.

Tsai focused on the prosecution’s reliance on Juarez’s claims, whose story he described as “pure fiction.”

“(Juarez) can be called many things, but a simple witness is not one of them,” Tsai said, describing him as a sophisticated political operator who “liked to be in control. He didn’t take no for an answer.”

According to Tsai, Juarez routinely asked to meet with Thao, but she had learned to keep a “comfortable distance” from him.

In November 2022, prior to the mayoral election, Thao did meet with Juarez at his request, but Tsai said she was “managing a volatile political figure, not entering into a conspiracy with him.”

Thao repeatedly dismissed Juarez’s demands, including his insistence on her firing then-Public Works Director Harold Duffey over a security contract Juarez was lobbying for. Instead, she promoted Duffey.

“Juarez thought he could control and direct the mayor-elect but he could not,” Tsai said.

Tsai didn’t contest that Thao asked the city administrator to appoint Larry Gallegos to a high-level role in the city’s government, another Juarez request. But he said Thao was already thinking of doing so and picked a position lower in the city hierarchy than Juarez wanted.

Thao agreed to tour the Evolutionary Homes showroom, but Tsai said taking meetings with people was a regular part of the mayor’s job.

Juarez and the Duongs communicated with multiple public officials in the East Bay who haven’t been charged with any crime, and some of them toured the Evolutionary Homes showroom.

Unable to get what he wanted from Oakland, Juarez became increasingly frustrated with Thao, Tsai said, and allegedly warned people that “I’m pretty vengeful.” Tsai didn’t say which people heard Juarez allegedly make these comments.

Tsai characterized the 2023 Vietnam trade delegation as a work trip, not a vacation, and as a success; the Vietnamese prime minister visited Oakland after. Tsai said Thao later learned “salacious allegations” about then-San Leandro City Councilmember Bryan Azevedo’s behavior in Vietnam. She was furious and disappointed about the rumors because they threatened to spoil the delegation’s work, Tsai said. Thao let David know she wouldn’t be able to partner with him if the allegations became public.

Azevedo resigned from his council seat in February and pleaded guilty to accepting a bribe from the Duongs to help Evolutionary Homes seek contracts with San Leandro.

Thao relied on her then-romantic partner, Andre Jones, as one of the “informal advisors” who helped her with work. She invited him to attend events outside of business hours, and he was a sounding board for the mayor on policy issues. But Tsai said Thao and Jones maintained separate financial lives because he was “bad with finances” and she did not trust him with money. They didn’t share bank accounts or credit cards, and they lived a “modest” life without luxuries.

Tsai acknowledged that Thao knew Jones had taken on a temporary consulting gig for the Duongs’ housing company. But he said she had no knowledge of payments he received.

Jurors will learn uncomfortable personal facts about Jones and Thao’s personal life, including fights, Tsai warned them, and they will see “very harsh language” in their text messages. But he said there will be no mention of bribes or a scheme.

“There is not a single text message, email, or recording, audio, video, or otherwise, of Sheng Thao asking anyone for money, or accepting money, from Mario Juarez, or Andy Duong, or David Duong,” Tsai said, adding later, “The real Sheng Thao is not guilty.”

Defense lawyers each made separate cases for their clients’ innocence, but each of their narratives ended in a similar conclusion: Mario Juarez is a conman, and the case is based on his self-serving lies.

Jones ’ lawyer, Mark Goldrosen, argued his client did legitimate work for Evolutionary Homes, not the “no-show” job that prosecutors claim. The attorney showed several calendar events, text messages, and photos indicating Jones did tasks for the company and attended meetings.

Jones wanted to help the company because he cared about the jobs and housing it could provide, Goldrosen said, and the financial backing of David Duong, whom he respected as a businessperson, made the project seem “viable.”

Jones, who had a part-time job at communications firm Kearns and West at the time, was practiced at providing political advice and was a natural fit, said Goldrosen. This advice, he revealed, was often provided to Thao when she was running for election.

Goldrosen argued that Jones was in a “fine financial position” and had no need for bribes. He preempted an issue that prosecutors will likely bring up about late rent payments on Jones and Thao’s home, explaining it as innocent neglect of the due dates.

Jeff Schenk, one of David’s attorneys, repeatedly emphasized that his client didn’t know about allegedly illegal behavior.

David wasn’t present for some of the key events in the case, Schenk said, including a fundraiser that Thao and Andy attended, where the scheme was allegedly formed. When he did attend a meeting at a Berkeley restaurant, he was simply doing his job as a city contractor, the lawyer argued.

Schenk encouraged jurors to question throughout the trial whether David acted like a person who was arranging bribes or as a normal businessman.

As an example, he pointed out that when David wanted to secure an extension on a contract for his recycling company, he wrote a letter to the mayor and every member of the City Council.

“David does not make the demand in an alley, in the rain, whispering to someone,” Schenk said.

According to Schenk, the government has misinterpreted recordings of Evolutionary Homes board meetings, too. The “deal is a deal” comment is taken out of context that will become clear later in the trial, he said.

The recording does cast light on Juarez’s character, who Schenk described as a “vengeful man.”

“He was, and is, the consummate hustler,” Winston Chan, Andy’s lawyer, said about Juarez in his statement. “This case lives or dies with whether or not, when he takes that witness stand, you believe what he has to say.”

Chan painted a picture of Andy as an extroverted, generous, fun-loving son of immigrants who worked in government outreach for California Waste Solutions.

Andy wanted Thao to win the 2022 election and wanted certain people in city government, Chan acknowledged, but that doesn’t mean he bribed politicians for these outcomes. Evolutionary Homes was a product of Juarez relentlessly petitioning the Duong family, knowing Andy was the key to David’s wallet, Chan claimed. His overtures were typically met with lukewarm and confused reactions from Andy, Chan argued.

The government and defendants agree that Juarez and the Duongs had a falling out that led to a physical altercation in front of CWS’ office, and Chan conceded that someone who took Juarez’s chain and watch later gave it to Andy. (The watch and chain were later recovered by FBI agents from Andy’s home.) But Chan said prosecutors omitted that Juarez showed up with a gun.

Physically humiliated and stripped of his company and key political alliances, and facing questions from the Duongs about allegedly misspent money, Juarez sought vengeance against his former business partners, Chan alleged.

“Mario Juarez maneuvers himself to get inside a room with federal prosecutors,” Chan said. “He pointed the finger at the very people he had defrauded, so the government would turn its attention away from him, cut him a sweetheart deal, and exert Mario’s revenge.”

What about the now-infamous text to Andy from Juarez saying, “We may go to jail”?

Chan said the government misinterpreted them.

They show “two people deeply involved in local politics watching election returns come in, 10 days after election day,” Chan said. The texts were sent the day the race for district attorney was called, for a candidate Juarez had opposed.

Pamela Price, who became DA upon those results, later charged Juarez for writing checks for the 2022 campaign mailers to help Thao, even though Juarez allegedly knew there were insufficient funds to pay for the political attack ads — a felony under state law.

“It’s gallow’s humor and has nothing to do with Sheng Thao,” the lawyer said.

Outside the courthouse, a group of 20 or so pro-Duong protesters carried signs demanding “Evidence Not Accusations” and “The Whole Truth Not Half The Story.” They cheered when David emerged from the courthouse. No one would say who organized the rally.

This story was originally published by The Oaklandside and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.