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Andrew de Deux, a former Orange County supervisor who received more than $550,000 in bribery over joint relief money intended to buy meals for poor, elderly members, was sentenced to five years in federal prison on Monday.
“I just don’t think that the sentences below the maximum reflect the seriousness of the crime,” said US District Judge James Cerna. “Public corruption causes damage far beyond the financial losses to the county.”
The judge expressed his dissatisfaction that the law allowed him to sentence him to just five years. He declined to comment after leaving the court with his lawyer.
War-torn Vietnam escapes with family as a child, becoming a lawyer, becoming one of the most powerful Vietnamese American politicians in Southern California. As part of a plea deal, he admitted last year that he poured more than $10 million in federal pandemic funds into nonprofits, leading them to his two daughters.
The scandal was discovered in 2023 by news site Laist. It reported that millions of people approved value contracts to the nonprofit.
His 23-year-old daughter, Rhiannon, a law student at UC Irvine, has approved the contract without revealing that he has signed a document identifying himself as the president or vice president of a nonprofit.
As the accusations were made, he claimed to be a victim of the slander, demanding his disobedient Vitriol, Nick Gerda, and his dismissal against the reporter who broke the story. When the Orange County Register called for Do’s to resign, he accused the newspaper of spreading “all misinformation.”
However, late last year, the DO agreed to resign from the Supervisory Board and pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit bribery. Federal prosecutors said the Beto American Association gave Rhiannon a job and paid her as an employee after her father voted in favor of a lucrative contract. Prosecutors also said the organization had piloted the money to other daughters through an air conditioning company.
“We are extremely grateful that the judge saw the case about what it was,” said Janet Nuguen, current District 1 superintendent. “He benefited while people were suffering. He used it during the pandemic when no one was watching.”
She said the county is conducting audits to better understand how the county is doing.
Prosecutors accused Rhiannon of making false statements about the loan application, but agreed to postpone the charges and could enter a conversion agreement in exchange for her cooperation.
Republican elder DO won a special election in 2015 and worked as a deputy and prosecutor before representing the 1st supervisor district of Orange County, covering Cypress, Fountain Valley, Garden Groves, Huntington Beach, La Palma, Los Alamitos, Westminster and Seal Beach.
He became the second Vietnamese-American in history to serve on the board and was later elected for a four-year, two-year term. He was known for his efforts to combat the homelessness and for his sponsorship of the Tet Festival in Fountain Valley, which attracted thousands of people each year.
As Vietnamese migrants face increasing threats of eviction and deportation, the actions of shameful supervisors “erode levels of trust in our community already instability in their government,” said Mai Nu Nguyen, research and policy manager at the Harbor Institute for Immigration and Economic Justice, a community group.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if he would go on his life after he was released. During that time, so many working-class people in the community were imprisoned, they don’t have the resources to pick up themselves again,” said the DO, who has no connection to the former supervisor.
Jodi Balma, a professor of political science at Fullerton University following the DO scandal, wondered how the bribery scheme somehow passed the checkpoints of county officials.
“There are some annoying steps to verify every contract with the county, but there are some really clever and smart,” Balma said. “Someone had to say ‘authorize that payment’ without receipt, verification or service. And those people are not responsible. ”
Balma also wondered whether it was fair that Rhiannon Do was allowed to participate in the conversion program.
“If my daughter had no punishment, I feel that is unfair to all other law students who might not be accepted by Bar Asun in California. Because of misconduct,” Balma said. “This is a huge misconduct for anyone wanting to be a lawyer.”
Andrew Do’s defense attorney asked him to be sentenced to 33 months. In court filings, they said he was volunteering at a Maritime Institute, which teaches underprivileged teens how to voyage, adding that the programme head praised the “unwavering ethical compass.”
The defense attorney expressed “shame” and “deep sadness” for his crimes, saying his license to practice the law was suspended and that his life was “destroyed by his own actions.”
“There was no actual payment to himself – all important funds were provided to his daughter Rhiannon,” the defense wrote in a court motion, claiming that he was “deliberately blinded to violations by his desire to see benefits in his adult daughter.
The plea deal sought reparations between $550,000 and $730,500, and the sale of the family’s confiscated home for the figures was sold at Tustin.
“This poor judgment episode stands out as unique in his otherwise admirable life,” the Defense wrote. “He lapsed a catastrophic judgment when he couldn’t stop paying for his daughter. He couldn’t see the red flags of these illegal activities because the VAS was helping his family.”
Advocating for generosity, the defense attorney evoked Do’s Back Story as a man who rose to public service after his childhood in war-torn Vietnam. However, prosecutors said he knew their vulnerability given that his background only amplified his guilt and that many of the constituents he sacrificed had equally difficult pasts.
“We have decided to abandon the elderly, illness and poverty in a national emergency so that he can benefit personally,” the prosecutor wrote.
“When the county and the country were most vulnerable, the defendant saw an opportunity to exploit the confusion for his own interests. “The scheme was extensive and planned, and the defendant had no concern about attracting others to his criminal enterprise, including his own children.”
The prosecutor wrote that the DO crime was “an attack on the very legitimacy of the government.”
Calling his actions “despicable” and attempts to minimize his crimes “absurd,” prosecutors said of the more than $10 million he challenged Viet American society, it was probably only $1.4 million due to a diet program for seniors and disabled people.
His willingness to involve his family in his plans pointed to his “moral indifference,” prosecutors said, but his campaign against his reporting exacerbated his negligence.
In connection with the DO case, the US lawyers’ firm announced bribery charges last week against the founder of the Viet America Society.
The judge ordered him to surrender himself to federal custody by August 15th and advised him to be imprisoned in a federal prison in Lompoc.
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