After former Orange County Supervisor Andrew Do was sentenced Monday, investigators vowed to continue tracing the involvement of others as part of the criminal conspiracy that unlawfully obtained more than $12 million in taxpayer money.
“Andrew Do transformed the County of Orange into an ATM available to his insiders. … We, along with our federal partners, are continuing to peel back the layers of conspiracy to hold every thief accountable and return those stolen monies to the communities to which they belonged,” Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said in a statement released after Do was sentenced.
Another layer was revealed June 6 when prosecutors unsealed grand jury indictments of the founder and president of Viet America Society, Peter Pham, and an associate with the organization Hand-to-Hand Relief Inc., Thanh Nguyen, on several counts of bribery and wire fraud. They are accused of being a part of a criminal conspiracy that unlawfully acquired $12 million.
New details in their indictment show how taxpayer money was laundered from contracts Do directed to their organizations. Both VAS and H2H received millions in contracts with the county to perform services, only then turning around and laundering that money and using it to pay off debtors, buy real estate, make lavish purchases and send bribes using the money back to Do.
Nguyen pleaded not guilty Monday in federal court. Pham is considered a fugitive from justice, and a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s office said he took a one-way flight to Taiwan in December.
Nguyen and Pham regularly filed fraudulent invoices from contracts and beneficiary agreements pushed forward by Do to provide meals for those in need in his district. The invoices sought reimbursement from the county for services never performed, according to prosecutors.
A part of the “overt acts” in the conspiracy throughout this period was Do’s former chief of staff.
While not named directly in the indictment, prosecutors noted that Do’s chief of staff would assist Nguyen and Pham “in processing paperwork for contracts, grants, and required monthly reports and invoices.”
The chief of staff, according to prosecutors, sent an email in 2023 directing a county employee to draft a $3 million agreement with VAS and included a scope of services document that Do had edited. Do’s edits include removing language from the contract setting a minimum number of meals required and another term stating that VAS would not be reimbursed for undelivered meals.
Chris Wangsaporn was Do’s chief of staff from 2017 to 2024, according to a spokesperson from the county.
Pham also used county funding to pay the eventual wife of Do’s chief of staff “under the guise that she was providing consulting services to” VAS, the U.S. Attorney’s office said in a news release. Do’s chief of staff allegedly then used his position to help VAS and H2H to fulfill reporting requirements and get paid.
“There can be no dispute that removing this language from the contract made it easier for (Do’s) coconspirators to defraud the County,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing.
The wife received $50,000 total in checks written by Pham during a period of more than five months in 2020 and 2021.
“Mr. Pham worked tirelessly to help his community during and after COVID,” his attorney said in a statement. “These charges are baseless.”
Wangsaporn did not respond to a request for comment.
One of the largest purchases Pham made, according to the indictment, was using $150,000 of county money to help him buy a home in Garden Grove. That money was first laundered through a bank account under Aloha Financial Investment Inc., according to Pham’s indictment, which did business under the name Perfume River Restaurant & Lounge.
Aloha Financial Investment Inc. received millions in checks collectively between Pham and Nguyen using county funding, prosecutors described throughout the indictment.
Thu Thao Thi Vu is named in the county’s civil lawsuit as controlling Aloha Financial Investment Inc. An attorney representing her did not respond to a request for comment.
Chairman of the Board of Supervisors Doug Chaffee said he doesn’t have any information if more people are going to be charged.
“If there’s something further that happened to that money, after they took it, I don’t know. I don’t have a basis for knowing,” Chaffee said.
“I’m hoping that that’s it,” Chaffee added. “I don’t want to keep finding more corruption, but those that were involved in it – let’s get on with it. Let’s take the actions we need to and send a message to everyone.”
First District Supervisor Janet Nguyen, who took over Do’s former seat, has pleaded for every actor in the conspiracy to face justice.
“I’m hoping that the feds will go after every individual responsible,” Nguyen said. “It doesn’t matter who they are and what title they held or didn’t. This message needs to be sent. Things like this don’t happen just because.”
“So, I’m hoping more indictments happen,” Nguyen said. “Because it’s very clear in the indictment that there’s a lot of really bad people out there that are still roaming around.”
Since the bribery scandal emerged, new protections have been created when the county issues contracts, especially those that come from supervisors’ discretionary funding.
The county is conducting a forensic audit of contracts Do was involved with to see if more contracts might be tainted. Chaffee said that’s going to take considerable time since Do was a supervisor for almost a decade.
One protection now in place is that county supervisors need approval from the wider board before issuing contracts using their discretionary funding. Before, Do was able to use his discretionary funding to enter into contracts on behalf of the county without a vote by the wider board after it had allocated funding to his district. The new policy was brought by AB 2946, which was signed into law by the governor last September.
The county’s contract procurement office now reviews all discretionary fund contracts as well.
“We need to go forward now,” Chaffee said, “in a more transparent, open way, and benefit the public in everything that we do.”