Former Oakland mayor Sheng Thao stands trial over alleged recycling bribery scheme

Thao faces six federal counts and up to 20 years if convicted

Two years ago, residents of Oakland, California, woke to FBI agents carrying dozens of boxes from the hilltop home of Sheng Thao, then the city’s 38-year-old mayor, as part of an investigation into an alleged pay-to-play scheme with the city’s recycling contractor. Thao, who grew up in a refugee family and overcame domestic violence and homelessness to become the first person of Hmong descent to run a major US city, was elected in 2022 and was once seen as a promising young mayor, and her story made her the subject of glowing media profiles. As mayor she revived the city’s Ceasefire violence-reduction strategy and brought in a much-needed infusion of revenue through the sale of the Oakland Coliseum sports complex. At the time of the raid she was already facing a heated recall campaign grounded in her perceived failure to address the city’s mounting public safety and homelessness crises — one that would see her ousted from office in November 2024. Two months later, Thao was indicted on federal corruption charges, and eventually replaced by longtime progressive congresswoman Barbara Lee in a special election.

Thao and three co-defendants now stand trial over the alleged scheme. Having just concluded its fifth week of hearings, the case has produced text threads in which co-defendants celebrated a plot that would make them “$100 million dollars richer” and touted that “money buys everything,” as well as an alleged beating at a recycling company’s headquarters. Proceedings are expected to conclude later this month. Thao, who has a constitutional right not to testify, has yet to take the stand, to the frustration of other witnesses.

The bribery, conspiracy and fraud charges rest on claims that during her 2022 campaign, David and Andy Duong — a father and son whose family runs California Waste Solutions — paid for negative mailers attacking her rivals and promised her romantic partner, Andre Jones, a $300,000 no-show job. In exchange, prosecutors allege, Thao promised to extend the company’s multi-million-dollar city contract, appoint the Duongs’ preferred people to important municipal positions, and buy shipping containers converted into homes for unhoused people from a company the Duongs ran with a business partner.

All four defendants have pleaded not guilty, with their lawyers denying the existence of any bribery scheme. Thao’s legal team did not respond to a request for comment.

In recent days, the trial has centered on testimony from Mario Juarez, an alleged co-conspirator in both the bribery and mailer scandals who is cooperating with government prosecutors. Juarez claimed that dealings between the Duongs and city government predate Thao’s term, alleging that in 2014, after securing Oakland’s $300m recycling contract, the Duongs gave gym bags full of cash to a revolving door of city officials, including a “sitting” councilmember. The defense has raised questions about Juarez’s credibility, suggesting that he artificially inflated expense reports and travel receipts submitted to the Duongs, and it is unclear whether Juarez will name any officials alleged to have accepted bribes.

The scandal has resonated well beyond the courtroom. Stephanie Tran, president of the Oakland Chinatown chamber of commerce, said the fall from grace of a mayor who offered representation to Oakland’s sizeable Asian-American community hit hard. “When the news [of the FBI raids] broke, there was a wide range of feelings from the community,” Tran said. “Many were, quite honestly, just disappointed, even sad” that an Asian woman in such a high position of power was now associated with the controversy.

Darwin BondGraham, news editor at local non-profit media outlet The Oaklandside, said the courthouse has been frequented by members of Oakland’s political class, but that when it comes to everyday Oaklanders, many just want the mess behind them. “The trial is accounting for things that happened when Oakland bottomed out during the first few years of the pandemic,” BondGraham said. “I think people moved on.”

What many residents want is a City Hall that fixes the potholes, answers 911 calls and acts with accountability — services that are not a given in a city that has faced recurring budget deficits for decades, leading to substantial staffing shortages and hundreds of millions in deferred maintenance. A recent report found that illegal dumping cost the city $10m more than it did a decade ago. Police responses to the most urgent calls averaged 23 minutes in 2022 and at times stretched past an hour in 2023, yet a city audit last year found Oakland has no targets for how quickly officers should respond.

Emily Wasserman, a mother of two living in the city’s Laurel neighborhood, said the city’s shortcomings and the allegations against Thao speak to structural problems with how Oakland is governed. “One of the things that bothers me the most in our government is that there is not a lot of accountability to the general public,” she said.

Wasserman was ready for change by 2024. Thao had been her councilperson for several years, and Wasserman found her ineffective, so she began volunteering with Empower Oakland, a voter education group founded by Thao’s main rival in the 2022 election, Loren Taylor — the figure targeted by mailers at the center of the alleged scheme.

Lakisha Young, founder and CEO of education non-profit The Oakland Reach, said the city is “inundated with initiatives” — literacy, violence prevention and affordable housing programs approved in recent years but lacking formal infrastructure for tracking results. “It makes you feel like things are happening, but there is never any follow-through,” she said. Young added that if the city is serious about tackling some of its most intractable problems, like public school testing scores and children’s literacy rates, it needs to ensure that earmarked funds are used meaningfully and with oversight. “Every year our kids are behind in the same way they were behind when we had 60% less resources because we are not building an ecosystem that is accountable to measuring its results,” Young said. “When people are held accountable, different things happen.”

On 3 November, voters passed a charter reform known as the “strong mayor” measure, Measure EE, which amends a governance structure that has historically been ambiguous about whether ownership for key decisions lies with the city council or the mayor. Going forward, the mayor will function as the city’s chief executive, with hiring and firing privileges as well as legislative and budgetary veto power. Supporters see it as an important step toward building accountability back into the city’s structure; Wasserman said it “will help to set the stage to address some of the longstanding challenges of how we can govern and work as a city.”

District 4 councilperson Janani Ramachandran is less exuberant about the measure, especially in the aftermath of Thao’s indictment. “I think that the unpredictability of who Oakland might vote in as mayor is a little scary,” Ramachandran said, noting that the city can swing from one extreme to another between elections.

For Tash Nguyen, executive director of economic equity non-profit Restore Oakland, the city’s future rests more with its residents than its politicians. Nguyen pointed to ICE patrols formed in response to federal immigration enforcement and tenant unions created to defend homes against rent surges. “Folks are showing up for each other. That’s what makes Oakland so special,” Nguyen said. “People outside of Oakland don’t know about that.”

Tran offered a similar summary of the moment. “The challenges that Oakland has, quite candidly, didn’t begin with this trial, and they won’t end when it’s over.”