The complete dossier on Sheng Thao. Bought by the Duong crime family through bribes and no-show jobs. Federally indicted. Tracking her trial in real time.
The Sheng Thao Files are LIVE!
Sheng Thao did not rise from poverty and homelessness to the mayor’s office through grit or resilience. She was purchased.
From her first City Council campaign in 2018 the Duong family used an illegal straw donor network to launder money into her races. By the 2022 mayoral election they went further. They spent seventy five thousand dollars on negative mailers that flipped a razor thin contest decided by only six hundred eighty two votes. They also set up a no show job for her partner Andre Jones that paid him at least ninety five thousand dollars with clear promises of up to three hundred thousand total.
The deal was straightforward. In exchange for the cash Thao agreed to protect the Duongs waste monopoly, steer city contracts to their new shipping container housing company, and put their chosen people into senior positions inside City Hall. She started delivering on every part of that agreement the moment she took office.
Oakland paid the price while she collected. She fired the police chief and then blocked every qualified replacement for nearly a year during a violent crime wave. Auto thefts jumped forty four percent. Property crime rates placed Oakland in the top one percent of cities nationwide. Her administration even missed a guaranteed fifteen point six million dollar state grant to fight retail theft. The city auditor called it a total failure of leadership and basic organization.
Businesses fled. The Athletics left. The city’s credit rating was downgraded. In November twenty twenty four voters ended it. Sixty point six percent recalled her, the first time in Oakland history that a sitting mayor was removed by the people.
Two months later she was indicted on eight federal counts of bribery, conspiracy, and honest services fraud. She faces up to thirty five years in prison.
Read the handwritten note treating Black people as tokens, the bribe records, and every piece of evidence for the October trial: https://t.co/fy9vq9Wsqx
Sheng Thao’s racist chief of staff Leigh Hanson was caught with a handwritten note outlining a political strategy that treated Black people as “tokens” to be used and discarded.
This is the same administration that let crime explode in Black neighborhoods while Thao was busy collecting BRIBES. Auto thefts jumped 44% on her watch. Property crime hit the top 1% of American cities. She fired the police chief @armstrongforoak and then spent a full year blocking every qualified replacement during the WORST VIOLENCE Oakland had seen in years. Her team even managed to miss a guaranteed $15,600,000 state grant meant to put license plate readers and safety infrastructure in the exact communities being terrorized.
While all of that was happening her inner circle was reducing Black Oaklanders to a line item in some cynical memo. The note surfaced in documents released during the federal bribery investigation into Thao. Racist Hanson was FIRED once it became public. There has been no serious accounting from Thao about why her white chief of staff felt comfortable writing it down inside the mayor’s office in the first place.
This is the real face of that operation. Not the carefully cultivated refugee to mayor story. Not the claims of fighting for the most vulnerable. Just another group of political operators who viewed entire communities as disposable assets in their scramble for power and money.
Every fact above is documented in IRS Form 990s, campaign finance filings, FBI investigative records, court documents, and legislative voting history.
The complete primary source dossier is now public.
https://t.co/dnxIDJpP10
Read it. Share it. Before they try to make it disappear.
Rob and Mia Bonta built their power in California on money from a human trafficking front, fraudulent nonprofits, and a donor network now under active FBI indictment.
Mia Bonta’s 2021 Assembly campaign received thousands in straw donor contributions from “Music Cafe,” an Oakland karaoke bar raided by state authorities for ketamine and ecstasy distribution, prostitution, and human trafficking. The man investigators believe was the real owner of that front called Rob Bonta “brother,” partied with the Bontas in limousines, and sat courtside with them at Warriors games.
Just months after those donations, Mia Bonta abstained on a bipartisan bill making the commercial sexual exploitation of children a serious felony under California’s Three Strikes law. She only reversed course after nationwide outrage and public threats forced her hand.
This is the same couple whose operation includes Mia running Oakland Promise without a valid federal 501(c)(3) determination. She filed IRS Form 990s using a duplicate EIN from another nonprofit in clear violation of California corporation law. While the organization operated in legal limbo, she collected base salaries of $160,625, $147,000, and $128,125 in different years. Rob Bonta used his position in the Legislature to behest corporate and lobbyist money directly into organizations paying his wife six figures, including a $25,000 transfer from his own foundation that he initially tried to disguise as a loan on tax filings.
Her 2021 campaign headquarters was located at 1241 High Street in Oakland — the exact former corporate address of Viridis Fuels, the failed biofuel company that received a $3.4 million state grant after Rob Bonta personally intervened with the California Energy Commission on behalf of its president, a donor with a documented history of tax liens and financial failure.
The Duong family and their associates, now federally indicted alongside former Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao on bribery and corruption charges, pumped over $172,000 into Rob and Mia Bonta’s campaigns — more than 30x their average contribution to other local politicians. When the FBI raids hit, Rob returned $155,000 “out of an abundance of caution.” His campaign then spent nearly $469,000 on private legal counsel from one of the most expensive firms in the country to navigate the investigation, including after receiving a letter warning that one of the targets possessed a “compromising video” of the Attorney General.
While this was happening, Rob Bonta’s Department of Justice leaked the full personal data of over 240,000 Californians who held concealed carry permits — names, addresses, dates of birth, and license numbers — days after the Supreme Court struck down similar restrictions in Bruen. The same Attorney General who has positioned himself as a national champion of data privacy and sued companies for far less presided over one of the most reckless state-sponsored data breaches in California history.
Mia Bonta authored AB 2624, legislation already being called the “Stop Nick Shirley Act” by critics. It attempts to criminalize journalists and citizens who document misconduct by taxpayer-funded nonprofits and government contractors — the exact structures her own record shows were used to move money and shield operations from scrutiny.
Rob Bonta has used the powers of the Attorney General’s office to manipulate ballot language against tough-on-crime measures that later passed with overwhelming voter support, lost a 6-3 Supreme Court case for violating First Amendment donor privacy rights, and allowed foreign-linked money to flow into litigation he then personally promoted for political gain.
They function as one closed system. She advances the agenda and shields the nonprofit pipeline. He controls the Department of Justice, the budget fights, and the legal apparatus that protects the machine. When one is threatened, the other’s power is deployed.
Read the handwritten note treating Black people as tokens, the bribe records, and every piece of evidence for the October trial: https://t.co/fy9vq9Wsqx
Sheng Thao’s racist chief of staff Leigh Hanson was caught with a handwritten note outlining a political strategy that treated Black people as “tokens” to be used and discarded.
This is the same administration that let crime explode in Black neighborhoods while Thao was busy collecting BRIBES. Auto thefts jumped 44% on her watch. Property crime hit the top 1% of American cities. She fired the police chief @armstrongforoak and then spent a full year blocking every qualified replacement during the WORST VIOLENCE Oakland had seen in years. Her team even managed to miss a guaranteed $15,600,000 state grant meant to put license plate readers and safety infrastructure in the exact communities being terrorized.
While all of that was happening her inner circle was reducing Black Oaklanders to a line item in some cynical memo. The note surfaced in documents released during the federal bribery investigation into Thao. Racist Hanson was FIRED once it became public. There has been no serious accounting from Thao about why her white chief of staff felt comfortable writing it down inside the mayor’s office in the first place.
This is the real face of that operation. Not the carefully cultivated refugee to mayor story. Not the claims of fighting for the most vulnerable. Just another group of political operators who viewed entire communities as disposable assets in their scramble for power and money.
127 days until October 19 when recalled Mayor Sheng Thao’s federal trial begins.
By then every document the government has collected will be laid out in open court. The $95,000 routed through her partner Andre Jones as a NO SHOW job. The explicit instructions she gave to use that money to cover her RENT and avoid disclosure. The text from Andy Duong stating that “money buys everything”. The fraudulent invoices created to HIDE the cash flow. The testimony from her own former chief of staff that Thao told her to keep quiet about the pay to play operation inside City Hall.
She did not stumble into this. She built it.
From the moment the Duong crime family started laundering contributions to her in 2018 she was locked in. They delivered $75,000 in negative mailers that flipped a 682 vote election. In return she promised to protect their waste monopoly @CalWasteSol, steer city contracts to their new housing company, and install their chosen people in senior positions. She delivered on all three as soon as she took office.
While she was cashing in she gutted public safety. She fired the police chief @armstrongforoak and then blocked every qualified replacement for nearly a year during a crime explosion that saw auto thefts jump 44% and property crime rates place Oakland in the top 1% of American cities. She let a guaranteed $15,600,000 state grant to fight retail theft slip away because her administration could not manage basic paperwork. The city auditor called it a complete FAILURE of leadership.
Her own partner is now the weakest link in the entire defense. He has almost no money left and every reason to cooperate with prosecutors to save himself. Once he confirms under oath that she directed the bribes and used him to hide them her claim of ignorance dies in front of the jury.
The trial will not be a debate about politics. It will be a presentation of financial records, intercepted messages, and insider testimony showing exactly how she sold the mayor’s office to the highest bidder. The full evidence and every development between now and October 19 is tracked at https://t.co/HAgzHK7QB0.
Stay tuned 🍿
127 days until October 19 when recalled Mayor Sheng Thao’s federal trial begins.
By then every document the government has collected will be laid out in open court. The $95,000 routed through her partner Andre Jones as a NO SHOW job. The explicit instructions she gave to use that money to cover her RENT and avoid disclosure. The text from Andy Duong stating that “money buys everything”. The fraudulent invoices created to HIDE the cash flow. The testimony from her own former chief of staff that Thao told her to keep quiet about the pay to play operation inside City Hall.
She did not stumble into this. She built it.
From the moment the Duong crime family started laundering contributions to her in 2018 she was locked in. They delivered $75,000 in negative mailers that flipped a 682 vote election. In return she promised to protect their waste monopoly @CalWasteSol, steer city contracts to their new housing company, and install their chosen people in senior positions. She delivered on all three as soon as she took office.
While she was cashing in she gutted public safety. She fired the police chief @armstrongforoak and then blocked every qualified replacement for nearly a year during a crime explosion that saw auto thefts jump 44% and property crime rates place Oakland in the top 1% of American cities. She let a guaranteed $15,600,000 state grant to fight retail theft slip away because her administration could not manage basic paperwork. The city auditor called it a complete FAILURE of leadership.
Her own partner is now the weakest link in the entire defense. He has almost no money left and every reason to cooperate with prosecutors to save himself. Once he confirms under oath that she directed the bribes and used him to hide them her claim of ignorance dies in front of the jury.
The trial will not be a debate about politics. It will be a presentation of financial records, intercepted messages, and insider testimony showing exactly how she sold the mayor’s office to the highest bidder. The full evidence and every development between now and October 19 is tracked at https://t.co/HAgzHK7QB0.
Stay tuned 🍿
Andre Jones, the man Sheng Thao lived with for a decade and turned into her personal bagman, is now the single greatest threat to her freedom.
She made him take the ninety five thousand dollars from the Duongs, disguised as a no show job, and use it to pay her rent so she could dodge disclosure rules. When the FBI raided their home he was left with nothing. At his arraignment he formally declared indigence. While the Duong family can spend millions on elite lawyers, Jones has almost no resources and faces prosecutors who can offer him a way out if he cooperates.
His defense requires him to say he was following her direct orders. Her defense requires her to pretend she had no idea where the money came from or what he was doing with it. Those stories cannot both be true at the same time. The joint defense is already cracking under the weight of that contradiction.
Jones has every incentive to save himself. Once he starts talking about how she directed the bribes and protected the Duong interests in exchange, her claim of ignorance collapses in open court. The financial records are already there. The fraudulent invoices are already there. The whistleblower testimony is already there.
She put him in the middle of a federal bribery scheme and then left him financially destroyed when it all came down. Now the same man she used to launder the money has the power to take years off her sentence by telling the truth.
The trial starts October 19. The pressure on Jones is only going to increase between now and then.
Andre Jones, the man Sheng Thao lived with for a decade and turned into her personal bagman, is now the single greatest threat to her freedom.
She made him take the ninety five thousand dollars from the Duongs, disguised as a no show job, and use it to pay her rent so she could dodge disclosure rules. When the FBI raided their home he was left with nothing. At his arraignment he formally declared indigence. While the Duong family can spend millions on elite lawyers, Jones has almost no resources and faces prosecutors who can offer him a way out if he cooperates.
His defense requires him to say he was following her direct orders. Her defense requires her to pretend she had no idea where the money came from or what he was doing with it. Those stories cannot both be true at the same time. The joint defense is already cracking under the weight of that contradiction.
Jones has every incentive to save himself. Once he starts talking about how she directed the bribes and protected the Duong interests in exchange, her claim of ignorance collapses in open court. The financial records are already there. The fraudulent invoices are already there. The whistleblower testimony is already there.
She put him in the middle of a federal bribery scheme and then left him financially destroyed when it all came down. Now the same man she used to launder the money has the power to take years off her sentence by telling the truth.
The trial starts October 19. The pressure on Jones is only going to increase between now and then.
The complete record, every document, every payment, every broken promise, and every consequence is now live at https://t.co/HAgzHK7iLs
We are tracking her federal trial in real time. New filings and developments will be added as they happen.
Go to the site. Sign up for updates. Read the evidence yourself.
She sold out the city that elected her. The files are open and they do not lie.
The Sheng Thao Files are LIVE!
Sheng Thao did not rise from poverty and homelessness to the mayor’s office through grit or resilience. She was purchased.
From her first City Council campaign in 2018 the Duong family used an illegal straw donor network to launder money into her races. By the 2022 mayoral election they went further. They spent seventy five thousand dollars on negative mailers that flipped a razor thin contest decided by only six hundred eighty two votes. They also set up a no show job for her partner Andre Jones that paid him at least ninety five thousand dollars with clear promises of up to three hundred thousand total.
The deal was straightforward. In exchange for the cash Thao agreed to protect the Duongs waste monopoly, steer city contracts to their new shipping container housing company, and put their chosen people into senior positions inside City Hall. She started delivering on every part of that agreement the moment she took office.
Oakland paid the price while she collected. She fired the police chief and then blocked every qualified replacement for nearly a year during a violent crime wave. Auto thefts jumped forty four percent. Property crime rates placed Oakland in the top one percent of cities nationwide. Her administration even missed a guaranteed fifteen point six million dollar state grant to fight retail theft. The city auditor called it a total failure of leadership and basic organization.
Businesses fled. The Athletics left. The city’s credit rating was downgraded. In November twenty twenty four voters ended it. Sixty point six percent recalled her, the first time in Oakland history that a sitting mayor was removed by the people.
Two months later she was indicted on eight federal counts of bribery, conspiracy, and honest services fraud. She faces up to thirty five years in prison.