Orange County isn’t giving up its efforts to convince a judge it should receive $10.2 million in restitution from former Supervisor Andrew Do — a ruling is expected in two weeks on how much Do owes after admitting to receiving bribes while in office.
Prosecutors are arguing for $878,230, which is what Do received in payoffs to direct contracts to a local organization, plus the county’s legal costs for helping federal prosecutors, while his attorneys concede that amount, minus $65,920 for work Do’s daughter did for the group.
But on Friday, July 25, county attorneys filed their legal brief giving their arguments to the court for why the county should get $10 million from the former supervisor.
“The county’s entitlement to restitution … is not limited to the amount that defendant personally gained through bribes, but should be based on the county’s actual losses that was caused by defendant’s criminal conduct,” county attorneys wrote.
The county wants Do to pay back the entire $10 million in contracts he steered to Viet America Society for a meals program meant to feed people in need that officials say was never carried out as intended. There is also a never-finished Vietnam War Memorial.
Do has been sentenced to five years in prison following his agreement with prosecutors to plead guilty and the court has determined that the county is the victim in the case.
In prosecutors’ filing for setting restitution, they acknowledged that the county wanted far more than what prosecutors were asking — in a victim impact statement, the county said it was due $11 million — but said it’s “unclear” if current evidence is strong enough to get a ruling for that amount.
Citing the current wealth of evidence that exists for how the bribery scandal unfolded and case law, county attorneys argued that it is reasonable to foresee the losses the county incurred due to Do steering contracts in exchange for payments.
That Do admitted to receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes while an elected official should have made it clear to him that the contracts were not being fulfilled as intended, county attorneys said.
Adding to that, county attorneys argue that Do edited contracts to remove protections on a $3 million grant, which was an act “to further impair the ability of the county to discover his criminal conduct and the criminal conduct of his co-conspirators.”
The founder and president of Viet America Society, Peter Pham, has been indicted on multiple charges of wire fraud and concealment of money laundering.
The county so far has spent $959,000 on attorney fees looking into Viet America Society’s work, county attorneys said.
Do’s defense attorneys have indicated he could pay $800,000 in restitution, but not the more than $10 million the county wants.
“(Do) is incapable of paying now or in the future, the sums sought by the victim county through its impact statement,” his defense attorneys wrote.
Do’s attorney, Paul Meyer, in an email about the county’s latest filing, said, “It is inappropriate to comment in advance of the hearing.”
County attorneys also cast doubt on whether Viet America Society even spent 15% of the funding on meals, as Do’s plea agreement said. The organization obscured and delayed audits the county requested and therefore county attorneys said “it is reasonable to conclude that VAS did not spend the funds provided by the county on contract purposes.”
Do’s restitution hearing isn’t the only avenue for the county to recover its losses. It has an ongoing civil lawsuit against Do, Viet America Society and others that is making its way through court.
But that civil lawsuit, along with Do’s expressed inability to repay the $10 million, is irrelevant in determining the restitution the county is entitled to in Do’s criminal case, its lawyers argued.
Do is expected to report to prison in August for the one count of conspiracy to commit bribery he pleaded guilty to in his agreement with federal prosecutors.
His restitution hearing is scheduled for Aug. 11 at a federal courthouse in Santa Ana.