Linda Nguyen Unveils Bribery Charges Against Former Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao
By wchung | 17 Jan, 2025

A veteran IRS investigator used a money trail to link the mayor's allegedly corrupt transactions with a city contractor.

Linda Nguyen, Uncle Sam's chief tax enforcer at the IRS Oakland field office, unveiled bribery charges on against former Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao and cronies .

“As is often the case the accused left a money trail for their deceptive acts of corruption,” Nguyen said at the January 16 press conference.  Nguyen is the head IRS criminal investigator at the Oakland field office.

That money trail led Nguyen to suspect that city trash recycling contractor David Duong and son Andy had provided $75,000 on mailers attacking Thao's opponents in the 2022 mayoral race in exchange for a promise by Thao, if elected, to extend the city's recycling conract and also buy 100 units of prefabricated homes to be built by a company formed by the Duongs in 2022.  To sweeten the deal the Duongs promised a $300,000 per year "no-show job" to Andre Jones, Thao's longtime partner and father to their two children. 

Thao had served as an Oakland City Councilwoman since 2018 until winning the mayoral race in November of 2022 by 682 votes to become the first big-city mayor of Hmong descent.  She also made history on November 5, 2024 as the first Oakland mayor to be recalled.  

Thao's brief administration had been plagued by negative press since June of 2022 when a former staffers accused her of having pressured her city council staffers to spend time on her mayoral campaign.  That was followed by a steady stream of criticism for everything from missing a filing deadline to apply for federal assistance for anti-shoplifting measures,  to a spate of retail closures, losing the Oakland As baseball franchise to Las Vegas, to failing to resolve a city budget shortfall.

If convicted of the bribery, conspiracy and mail and wire fraud charges Thao would face a maximum of 95 years in prison while the Duongs are looking at 35 years apiece, plus an extra 5 years for Andy for making false statements to an investigator.

“The alleged activities of the accused have led to a growing sense of distrust among taxpayers and elected officials,” Nguyen added. “As alleged, David and Andy Duong used bribes to further the profitability of their business interests and to obtain undo influence over the appointment of high-level Oakland city officials.”

Linda Nguyen has worked at the IRS Oakland Field Office since January 2001 as a special agent for criminal investigations.  Access to tax and financial records gives her the ability to ferret out irregularities evidencing a broad range of criminal activities.  

Among recent investigations by Nguyen leading to prosecutions is a business fraud case against the operator of a scheme to deceive numerous businesses into collectively paying a total of over $5 million for listings they had never ordered in a non-existent "business directory".  After running the scam from Canada the defendant had sought to evade jurisdiction by relocating to Greece but was extradited to Oakland to face charges.

A recent money laundering case involved a money-sending service that sought to evade a $3,000 registration limit by "structuring" $9,200 in transfers to Mexico as four separate transfers made under fictitious names.  The co-owner was sentenced to 12 months in federal prison after entering a guilty plea.

A more typical IRS case filed by Nguyen was against the CEO of a local manufacturing business that failed to turn over to the IRS $1.1 mil in withheld social security, medicare and income taxes.