Former Orange County Supervisor Andrew Do is expected to learn on Monday, June 9, how long he will stay in prison for accepting more than $550,000 in bribes in a scheme involving the embezzlement of millions in COVID-relief funds.
Do — once one of the leading Vietnamese-American politicians in Orange County — is scheduled to be sentenced by Judge James Selna in federal court in Santa Ana. Last year he signed a plea deal admitting to one charge of conspiracy to commit bribery, acknowledging that beginning in 2020 he received money in return for directing millions of dollars in contracts to Viet America Society and Hand-to-Hand Relief Organization Inc.
The money in question came mostly from Do’s First District discretionary funds. Of the $9.3 million in COVID relief funds Do directed to Viet America Society to provide meals for the elderly and people with disabilities, only $1.4 million was actually spent on meals, according to his plea agreement. Another $1 million was awarded to the group to erect a Vietnam War memorial that has not been completed.
Part of the money kicked back to Do was given by way of payments to Do’s daughter, Rhiannon Do, through a high-paying job at Viet America Society and providing a down payment on a roughly $1 million Tustin home. Do also admitted that another daughter received $100,000 from Viet America Society.
And much of the rest, according to prosecutors, ended up being used by Do’s co-conspirators for real estate purchases, lavish dinners, rent, paying down debts and other purchases.
Federal prosecutors want Do, a lawyer by profession, to serve the maximum of 60 months in prison. His defense attorneys are arguing that 33 months is a more appropriate sentence, saying Do didn’t realize he was being bribed and that he has a long career as a public servant.
“[It] is clear that I simply did not want to see the payments for what they were (a bribe) and now my bad judgment has derailed all that I had sought to achieve before I left public office,” Do wrote in a letter to the judge.
Do’s lawyers said the former county supervisor decided to plead guilty once he understood the scope of what happened and how the large payments to his daughters could be construed as a bribe.
“He completely took responsibility and walked into this court to plead guilty,” his lawyers wrote. “Andrew Do’s life has been destroyed by his own acts.”
Prosecutors argue the gravity of Do’s misdeeds affected the county’s most vulnerable at a challenging time for many during the coronavirus pandemic. The money Do directed to Viet America Society failed to provide the breadth of help it ostensibly promised to do, and was a “callous exploitation,” they argued.
One of the bribes was $350,000 for a down payment on a $1 million house in Tustin that allowed Rhiannon Do to own a home as a young law student. Rhiannon Do has admitted her conduct was criminal, but prosecutors allowed her to enter into a diversion agreement. The Tustin home has been forfeited and will be sold for restitution.
In his defense, Do’s attorneys emphasize he did not receive any money himself, but instead the benefit was to his daughters. That made him “willfully blinded” to the bribes and ended up being a “catastrophic self-delusion,” his attorneys argued, and the plea agreement in their view shows that Do was not part of an explicit quid pro quo, but rather an “implicit agreement.”
But prosecutors in their filings to the court have begun to question what level of responsibility Do actually has accepted.
“Do is trying to minimize his own conduct as nothing more than a father’s failure to see payments to his daughters as ‘implicit’ bribes and that, while he pled guilty to ‘bribery,’ the payments he and his family received are better understood as ‘gratuities,’ and are, therefore, less egregious,” prosecutors wrote in a reply brief. “But the facts are the facts, and the timing of these payments – which (Do) has admitted were bribes – prompts only one reasonable inference: quid pro quo, not ‘coincidence.’ If (Do) fails to acknowledge that, it’s hard to believe he has truly accepted responsibility.”
Do’s lawyers said in a filing that he has “fully accepted responsibility,” and pointing out “mischaracterizations” by prosecutors does not take away from that.
“Andrew Do stated at his change of plea that he admitted everything in the factual basis and accepted his guilty plea to bribery,” his lawyers wrote. “He has never backed away from this.”
When asked for comment, Paul Meyer, an attorney for Do, said, “It is not productive to make comments in advance of sentencing.”
The OC Board of Supervisors joined the sentencing process in April when it filed a victim impact statement that asked the judge to sentence Do to the maximum amount allowed and that he be ordered to pay restitution “that both recognizes the full scope of the public harm and betrayal his actions caused and that also makes the county and its residents whole.”
First District Supervisor Janet Nguyen, who won election to Do’s former First District seat in November, said it’s clear that Do has not fully accepted responsibility. The notion that he was ignorant of the fact that he was receiving bribes is unfounded, especially considering he was trained as a lawyer, she said.
“Here is a gentleman who is a former public defender, a former deputy district attorney. His wife is a judge in Orange County. Are you telling me he’s that naive?” Nguyen said. “To say that he is so naïve, and not know any of this, a person who prides himself on knowing the law and his wife is the law, you’re telling me to say he has no clue? … Absolutely not.”
Fourth District Supervisor and board Chair Doug Chaffee echoed the sentiment that it’s hard to accept Do was blinded to the nature of the bribes.
“Well, he was doing some of the bribing, come on,” Chaffee said. “Where did the money wind up? Well, (it) wound up mostly in his family. So, I don’t know how that can be credible … It’s hard for me to accept that.”
Nguyen said she’s been dreading the day of Do’s sentencing, fearing that justice might not be delivered.
Selna is not required to give a sentence that either side wants, but Do’s sentence must be based on the single charge he is facing.
“Five years is not a long time for what he’s done, when tens of thousands of seniors out there needed the help,” Nguyen said.
Prosecutors on Friday expanded their case beyond Do, unsealing new federal charges against the founder and president of Viet America Society, Peter Pham, and an associate with the Garden Grove-based group Hand-to-Hand Relief Organization Inc., Thanh Huong Nguyen. Prosecutors say those two together received $12 million in county funds.
Pham faces 15 charges, including wire fraud, bribery and money laundering. Nguyen was charged with counts of wire fraud and concealment money laundering.
Prosecutors alleged Pham pocketed most of the $12 million in COVID-relief funds he bribed Do to direct the nonprofits’ way and laundered the money to avoid detection.
Nguyen is expected to be arraigned at a federal courthouse in Santa Ana on Monday. It is unclear when Pham will be arraigned, he is considered a fugitive from justice, federal officials said.
“This conspiracy was a house of cards built on lies, betrayal, and insatiable greed,” OC District Attorney Todd Spitzer said in a statement on Friday. “When it collapsed, it destroyed the façade of a hometown hero who had himself emerged from the ashes of the fall of Saigon and exposed the shameful reality of a politician who ignored the desperate cries of his most vulnerable constituents to line the pockets of his family and friends with millions of dollars in cash.”
The OC Board of Supervisors has said that Do’s misdeeds cost the county $10 million in public funds for the contracts it paid to Viet America Society.
Some of that money will be paid back through restitution. Do’s lawyers claim his plea agreement puts that restitution figure between $550,000 and $730,500. A hearing on that issue has not been scheduled.
Chaffee said he believes any restitution the county gets should go back to the First District.
“That’s where the money was intended to go, and I think we should respect that,” Chaffee said.
Nguyen agreed, saying the money could pay for the completion of the war memorial or a new meals program or repairs to public facilities in the district.
For Do, the shattering of his legacy is not lost upon him, according to his letter.
“I know that I have caused the total destruction of my career and good name, and have harmed my family beyond words,” Do wrote in a letter to the judge.
“My poor judgment going along with the purchase of a house without seeing that it was anything other than an implicit bribe to me, is a continuing shame and heartache that will never leave me.”
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