Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao speaks during a rally against her recall at Pacific Renaissance Plaza in Oakland on Oct. 15, 2024. The San Francisco Chronicle reported that Thao, who was recalled in November, has been indicted after an FBI investigation. A former staffer said she testified in front of the grand jury. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)
Updated 3:43 p.m. Thursday
A former staffer of recalled Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao said Thursday that she testified before a federal grand jury about her ex-boss, who has reportedly been indicted following an FBI investigation.
The San Francisco Chronicle, citing an unnamed source familiar with the investigation, reported Thursday afternoon that Thao had been indicted by the grand jury.
Renia Webb, who was Thao’s chief of staff when she was a member of the City Council and aided in her transition to the mayor’s office, told KQED she believed charges were forthcoming after she was subpoenaed to testify last month but added that she hadn’t been notified by the U.S. attorney’s office about what they might be.
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“Today, I feel like Oakland is going to be able to move forward,” said Webb, who is running in this year’s special election to replace Thao. “We’re walking into a brighter future and I feel that way, like we’re taking a turn.
“I knew it was coming, but it’s just — yeah, a blessing. A blessing for Oakland,” she continued.
FBI agents raid the Maiden Lane home of Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao on June 20, 2024. (Jessica Christian/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)
The U.S. attorney’s office for the Northern District of California declined to comment on the report of an indictment, but it had announced earlier that it would reveal an unspecified “significant law enforcement action” on Friday morning in a press conference with representatives from the FBI, U.S. Postal Inspection Service and IRS Criminal Investigation’s Oakland field office.
Thao has been one of the central figures in an ongoing federal corruption investigation in Oakland, which has also ensnared the politically connected Duong family, who own the city’s curbside recycling contractor, California Waste Solutions. A spokesperson for Cal Waste said the company had not heard from the federal government about possible indictments.
The former mayor has said repeatedly that she is not the target of the investigation, telling KQED’s Political Breakdown in October, “I am innocent, I have done nothing wrong.” She did not reply to a request for comment by the time of publication Thursday.
Former Councilmember Loren Taylor, who is also running in this year’s special election and finished second to Thao in 2022, called it “unfortunate that Oakland is in the news, the national news, again for political corruption, for things that are negative.”
“We also have to make sure that our elected officials are focused on the things that matter most to everyday Oaklanders’ lives and not distracted by things like political scandals or doing returning favors for others who have supported them,” Taylor told KQED.
Businesses owned by the Duong family and a trip they sponsored for East Bay politicians to Vietnam in 2023 are believed to be connected to the probe, but the FBI and U.S. attorney’s office have so far offered no insight into possible charges.
The report of Thao’s indictment comes a day after the FBI raided the home of Bryan Azevedo, a San Leandro City Council member who traveled to Vietnam with the Duongs and Thao. Three locations associated with David Duong and his son Andy, including Cal Waste’s headquarters, were raided by federal agents in June, along with Thao’s home.
Days after the June raids, a federal grand jury subpoenaed city records referencing Cal Waste, the 2022 mayoral election that Thao won, her long-term partner Andre Jones, and a few other people and businesses. In July, it issued a second subpoena asking for much of the same information, as well as some Oakland police records, including reports made against the Duongs since April 2024.
In addition to the federal investigation, the Duong family and Cal Waste have been the subject of a straw donation probe by the Oakland Public Ethics Commission and the California Fair Political Practices Commission since at least 2019.
The state political watchdog agency has said there is probable cause to believe Andy Duong and Cal Waste used other peoples’ names to illegally donate to local campaigns between 2016 and 2018. A probable cause report from the FPPC and Oakland PEC filed in 2021 cites at least 93 donations, totaling over $76,000, to Thao, Oakland City Council members and other local politicians.
U.S. postal inspectors check documents at a home tied to David Duong, one of the multiple properties searched by law enforcement that included residences to members of a politically connected family who run the city-contracted recycling company, California Waste Solutions, in Oakland on June 20, 2024. (Ray Chavez/MediaNews Group/The Mercury News via Getty Images)
Andy Duong made at least one donation to Azevedo’s political campaign in his 2022 bid for San Leandro mayor, which he said in a letter to the San Leandro Times in June was properly reported.
Days after the June raids, Azevedo distanced himself from the Oakland figures.
“There have been a lot of rumors recently tying me to Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao’s alleged corruption scandal and I want to set the record straight,” he wrote in the weekly paper’s June 27 edition. “I don’t know anything about this alleged corruption nor do I believe that we should assume that corruption has happened until the facts come out.”
San Leandro spokesperson Paul Saftner told KQED that the city was not involved in Azevedo’s attendance on the Vietnam trip, which was co-sponsored by the Vietnamese American Business Association, led by David Duong.
“It is the city’s understanding that it did not pay for Councilmember Bryan Azevedo’s travel expenses to attend the 2023 Vietnam trip,” Saftner said in an email. “The only expense incurred by the City was for City-branded giveaway merchandise, which cost approximately $350, which Council Member Azevedo could gift to whoever he wished during the trip.”
San Leandro Mayor Juan Gonzalez told KQED on Thursday that he did not know whether the FBI was investigating Azevedo specifically and did not believe it had requested any documents from the city at this time.
“We will be obviously interested in information that they reveal so that, based on what we hear, if there’s a need for us to take action, certainly we will take action,” he said.
“At this time, there’s just a fair amount of uncertainty … we’re not prepared to speculate,” he continued.
Azevedo did not respond to KQED’s request for comment on Wednesday.