OAKLAND — California Attorney General Rob Bonta received a letter last year warning him that East Bay businessman Andy Duong had a recording of the politician in “a compromising position,” and that he may be at risk of blackmail.
The emergence of the May 2024 letter follows the revelation that Bonta spent $468,000 of his campaign cash on lawyers while being questioned by federal authorities investigating a sprawling East Bay corruption case, which later ensnared Duong and several others.
The missive — which was sent directly to Bonta’s office — was penned and signed by Mario Juarez, a two-time Oakland City Council candidate and longtime political operative whose credibility has come under withering attack in recent court filings.
Whether it spurred the attorney general’s subsequent legal bills remained unclear Thursday. Bonta’s senior advisor, Dan Newman, said the two were “not related,” but that the “letter was shared with law enforcement and they provided appropriate follow-up.”
On Wednesday, Newman told this news organization that that Bonta’s legal bills were for the sole purpose of “providing information that could be helpful to the investigation of those implicated” in the ongoing criminal probe. He added that Bonta was never a target of the investigation and that “the AG’s involvement is over.”
The Los Angeles Times also quoted Newman Wednesday as saying that federal investigators had reached out to the attorney general, since he was a “possible victim” in the alleged corruption case. Calls by this news organization to Bonta and an attorney for Andy Duong were not returned Thursday.
The letter — a copy of which was obtained by this news organization — was dated May 9, 2024, and provided no details about the alleged recording of Bonta. Instead, it only suggested that Andy Duong “engages in entertaining elected and other officials to extract recordings without their knowledge to later use in blackmail circumstances.” It added that “the revelation of the videos would cause public embarrassment at the least or expose illicit activities, including the use (of) drugs among other matters.”
Bonta was a common fixture on Andy Duong’s Instagram page in recent years, seen in photos inside a limousine, at a Golden State Warriors game, alongside famed Filipino boxer Manny Pacquiao and at numerous political events. Andy Duong went so far as to call the attorney general a “brother” in one 2021 post that included 10 pictures of the two together over the years.
The letter’s author, Juarez, is widely believed to be the apparent FBI informant — and unidentified “Co-Conspirator 1” — that federal prosecutors relied upon while securing indictments earlier this year against former Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao, her romantic partner, Andre Jones, and Andy Duong, along with his father, David Duong.
Federal prosecutors say Thao accepted bribes from Andy and David Duong in the form of political favors and a $95,000 no-show job for Jones. In return, prosecutors claimed Thao promised to secure lucrative city contracts for a fledgling housing company co-founded by David Duong, as well as for the Duongs’ recycling business, California Waste Solutions.
Throughout the indictments, federal prosecutors repeatedly referenced an unnamed “Co-Conspirator 1,” who played a pivotal role in the alleged scheme. For example, the co-conspirator was present for a December 2022 meeting in San Leandro, when Thao, Jones and Andy Duong reached an initial agreement for Jones to receive $300,000 as a “no-show” employee of the Duongs’ new housing venture, the indictments said.
Prosecutors also claimed the co-conspirator funneled thousands of dollars to Jones as part of the scheme. And authorities say the co-conspirator played a crucial role in sending last-minute election mailers — allegedly paid for by the Duongs — to attack Thao’s political opponents during the 2022 mayoral election, according to the indictments.
One text message sent by the co-conspirator to Andy Duong after that election quipped that “we may go to jail … but we are $100 million dollars (sic) richer,” according to the indictments.
“Money buys everything,” Andy Duong allegedly replied, according to the indictment.
Juarez also faced state check fraud charges over the campaign mailers, though the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office later dismissed that case, amid concerns about whether it could be proved at trial.
Juarez’s letter to Bonta came on the heels of a bitter falling out with the Duong family. And his credibility has since been challenged by David Duong’s attorneys, who has sought to erode the government’s case by attacking their apparent star witness. In court filings, David Duong’s attorneys claimed that co-conspirator “a decades-long history of fraud,” which leaves his claims “fundamentally unreliable.”
“More egregiously, the affidavit did not reveal that Co-Conspirator 1 has repeatedly falsely accused business partners of crimes and other wrongdoing in efforts to escape liability for his own actions — just as he did here,” Duongs’ attorneys wrote in the filing.
On Thursday, attorneys for Thao and Andre Jones joined in David Duong’s motion attacking Juarez’s credibility ahead of trial.
Edward Swanson, the attorney for David Duong, said Thursday his client “strongly denies the allegations in this letter.
“As we highlighted in our recently filed motion regarding the search warrants, Mario Juarez is not to be believed,” Swanson said.
Juarez’s May 2024 letter to Bonta also read as a whistleblower’s plea to the state’s top prosecutor — including allegations that Jones received more than $80,000 “for fictitious work, as well as illegal financial contributions during the mayoral campaign.”
Juarez said he took his concerns to Bonta, because he feared that “the Duong Family has close ties to individuals in leadership” of the Oakland Police Department, though he offered no details about who that might be.
Bonta’s Public Inquiry Unit responded to Juarez on June 4, 2024, urging him to take his concerns to local authorities, who are “primarily responsible” for concerns about law enforcement agencies or their employees, according to a copy of the letter obtained by this news organization.
Juarez did not respond to a request for comment.
Days before Juarez sent the letter, he and the Duongs had a violent falling out at the Oakland waterfront showroom of their joint housing venture, Evolutionary Homes. On May 3, 2024, Juarez claimed he was assaulted by members of the Duong family, while the family told Alameda County prosecutors that Juarez “held them for hours demanding money and they feared for their safety,” according to court documents.
The spat erupted after the Duongs complained about receiving little from their $1 million in the housing company. A month later, Juarez reported being the target of a shooting at his Fruitvale home, though Oakland police have yet to reveal a suspected motive behind the encounter.
Jakob Rodgers is a senior breaking news reporter. Call, text or send him an encrypted message via Signal at 510-390-2351, or email him at jrodgers@bayareanewsgroup.com.