OAKLAND – The best administrator of Oakland sent a text and visited with two key players of the pretender the corruption program of the former mayor of Oakland, Sheng Thao, on a housing project potentially worth $ 66 million, according to a document of documents published this week.
The revelation is added to an always emerging image of the translator of the alleged back-shop and political favoritism throughout the turbulent mandate of Thao, as revealed by more than 11,700 pages of documents of the city which were seized by federal agents through a summons at the time last year and made public this week.
Together, emails and SMS add a context to the accusation acts of bombs filed by federal prosecutors in January against Thao and three others. Prosecutors say that the quartet has embarked on a sprawling plot based on promises in David and Andy Duong of several million dollars government contracts, in exchange for $ 300,000 in bribes payments in Thao and his romantic partner, Andre Jones.
Previously reported emails and SMS have shown that Thao had pushed to appoint a long -standing employee of the city favored by the Duongs, who direct the contractual recycling company of Oakland, to a key housing role, in a decision designed to keep the alleged promises that Thao has made. The messages also detailed the dark influence that Jones seemed to hold in his administration.
However, newly discovered communications have threw a new projector on the actions of several senior officials in the town hall and the mayor’s office in the months following the finalization of the alleged corruption agreement.
Several text sons show that the city administrator, Jestin D. Johnson, spent months – October 2023 to January 2024 – communicating with David Duong, owner of the Oakland recycling entrepreneur, California Waste Solutions. Many of them focused on the separate housing company of the Duongs, called Evolutionary Homes, which has become a key cog in the alleged corruption program.
The texts show that Thao personally presented Johnson to David Duong on October 31, 2023, suggesting that the businessman “would like to have a meeting with you”.
The text of the introductory group of Thao arrived while David and Andy Duong will get improper that Thao had not delivered, David Duong saying to a co-conspirator that she needed to conclude her end of the agreement “so that she had no responsibility ” or` `trouble ”, according to the federal act. Thao and the elder Duong received a phone call, just before Do not put a message to its city administrator and David Duong, according to the judicial archives.
The later telephone call between David Duong and Johnson seems to have made an impression. In a few weeks, Johnson sent a text to David Duong saying that “I really want to get into your calendar.”
On January 7, 2024, Johnson met David Duong and the longtime political operation Mario Juarez for a visit to the exhibition hall of the Housing Society on the Oakland Sea Front, which included replicas of shipping containers transformed into modular houses for homeless women and children.
On the same day, David Duong told Johnson in a text that the company would prepare sites for 222 units on nine sites “as discussed” during their visit. “We will make our reasonable diligence and ensure that all members of the council are informed of the proposals and we will be available for all questions before the action of the council,” wrote Duong.
We do not know what came from the meeting in the coming months. Federal prosecutors allege that the Co-Conspirators plan was to take advantage of the government’s financing if the city declared an emergency roaming crisis, releasing the use of federal funding for this issue.
Thao’s lawyer Jeff Tsai refused to comment on Thursday.
Johnson and Juarez exchanged SMS only a few days after the meeting of the search for a conference call with the council of supervisors of the county of Alameda, Nate Miley. During the weeks of texts, Juarez has sometimes become chummy, inviting Johnson to the feast of secondary school diplomas and sending a video of himself lighting a candle inside a church so that Johnson is protected and “never alone”.
“You don’t look like the type that is easy to type. Happy to see it in action,” Juarez told Johnson on March 13, 2024. “Drink still offers on the table.”
“It looks good. We are certainly going to (catch up) soon,” said Johnson.
In response to questions about Johnson communications, city spokesperson Sean Maher told this press organization that the scheduled meeting with Juarez and Miley “did not end with”.
Maher said Johnson had contacted Duong and Juarez at the request of Thao, but first thought that the problem was greater than payment delays involving the Duong family business recycling with the city. In Oakland, the mayor can fire an administrator of the city without reason.
“When he became clear that they were trying to sell him something, the administrator of the City Johnson did not respond more,” said Maher in an email.
Miley, for his part, said in an interview he knew Juarez “for many years, so he certainly had access to me.”
But the supervisor maintains that nothing seemed out of the ordinary on the field of Juarez. Treating with lobbyists, he said, is only a reality to be a politician.
No sign exists that scalable houses have ever received a contract with Oakland or any other East Bay municipality. David Duong and Juarez – The Co -founders of Evolutionary Homes – had a fall in May 2023, for allegations that Juarez did not deliver enough units for the company and would have cheated the duongs of their $ 1 million investment, according to court documents.
However, earlier the same year, David Duong had approached city officials with different demand.
In February 2024, he launched a personal advocacy to the assistant administrator of the city Betsy Lake concerning an extension on a project of solution of Californian waste which faced a key date. At the time, the company was faced with the prospect of another delay in the construction of a new recycling plant in the North Gateway area of the former Oakland army base.
Louansee Moua, a former Thao campaign consultant who then worked behind the behind the scenes of the Duongs and CWS, sent a message to the chief of staff of Thao, Leigh Hanson, on the issue. At that time, Hanson said that Nikki Fortunato low at the time, then, was being informed of the issue.
Moua followed this a few weeks later with a message to a Thao staff member asking to talk about the extension.
Juarez also tried to fold Johnson’s ear once again.
In June 2024, Juarez approached him with a new request. This time, he wanted to conclude an agreement with Genfinity Homes LLC, a company he launched after his apparent falls with the Duongs.
“I want to move some modular housing units. I need your help or if it is not to come, let me know and I will move my efforts elsewhere … You are the person who directs and directs our city (sic) at the end of the day. I hope everything else is well with you and your loved ones, ”sent a text from Juarez.
Johnson has never written. The FBI raids in the houses of Thao and Jones and Duongs occurred almost three weeks later.
Originally published:
California Daily Newspapers
