The Oakland political operative testified that the former mayor sought $300,000 in exchange for city help for a housing venture he formed with the Duong family, an account the four defendants, who have pleaded not guilty, are expected to challenge on cross-examination.
For three weeks, jurors in the Ronald V. Dellums Federal Building in downtown Oakland had heard the government’s case against former Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao from prosecutors, an FBI agent and stacks of exhibits. On Friday, they heard it from the man who says he helped arrange it.
Mario Juarez, a longtime figure in East Bay politics, spent the day on the witness stand in United States v. Thao (N.D. Cal. No. 4:25-cr-00003), answering questions from Assistant U.S. Attorney Abraham Fine. On the stand, he acknowledged pleading guilty to a felony charge involving the bribery of a public official under a plea agreement with prosecutors, ABC7 reported. Prosecutors had disclosed the plea, to conspiracy to commit bribery, in a court filing in July, The Oaklandside reported at the time.
Thao, her longtime partner Andre Jones, and David Duong and his son Andy Duong, whose family runs Oakland’s recycling contractor, California Waste Solutions, have all pleaded not guilty. The January 2025 indictment charges each with conspiracy, bribery, and mail and wire fraud; Andy Duong also faces a false-statements count. Thao, elected in 2022, was recalled in 2024, months after FBI agents searched her home.
What follows is Juarez’s account as he gave it on direct examination. It has not yet been tested by cross-examination, and the jury will decide what happened. (The Inquirer covered the trial’s opening on Oct. 17.)
The deal Juarez described
Juarez told jurors he met the Duongs around 2008 and later lobbied for California Waste Solutions when the City Council awarded it a recycling contract in 2014, on a 7-1 vote and against city staff’s recommendation, KQED reported. He testified that he loaded gym bags of cash, as much as $300,000 in one, for officials he did not name. Prosecutors did not pursue the point, and it is not among the charges.
The core of his testimony concerned Evolutionary Homes, a shipping-container housing company he said he co-founded with the Duongs in October 2022. That month, he testified, he met with Thao, then a council member running for mayor, and she agreed that the city would buy 100 units if she won. Then, he said, she “threw a curveball,” asking for $300,000. The money would go through Jones, he testified: “We agreed to do it through AJ,” The Oaklandside reported.
He also described a $75,000 mailer campaign attacking Thao’s leading opponent, Loren Taylor, which he said Andy Duong funded with David Duong’s approval. He acknowledged that he kept most of the money and that checks he wrote bounced, KTVU and other outlets reported; that bad check is what started the investigation. He testified that he coordinated with Jones, and when jurors were shown texts in which Jones pushed back, Juarez said he read them as Jones avoiding a paper trail. In December 2022, Jones received five checks totaling $20,000, according to the testimony.
At a March 2023 dinner at Skates on the Bay in Berkeley, Juarez said, the arrangement became “a structure that would make them millionaires”: $10,000 per unit, or up to $3 million if Oakland bought 300. He said the plan was built to give David Duong “plausible deniability.”
“Nothing is free,” Juarez told jurors, according to Bay City News and other accounts from the courtroom. “We invested money in her because she was going to give us money in return.” At one point Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers told him, “Listen to the question and answer it.” Asked about his work now, Juarez said he drives for Uber and works for AT&T.
What the defense says
Cross-examination has not begun; prosecutors expect about another half day of questions, ABC7 reported. But defense lawyers laid out their view of Juarez in opening statements on Oct. 14.
Thao’s attorney, Jeffrey Tsai of DLA Piper, called Juarez’s story “pure fiction” and said Thao had been “managing a volatile political figure,” The Oaklandside reported. “There was certainly no agreement for any bribe of any kind, no discussion of $300,000 or modular housing units,” he said. “There is not a single text message, email, or recording” of Thao asking anyone for money, he told jurors. “The real Sheng Thao is not guilty.” The Inquirer was not able to reach Tsai before publication.
Jones’s attorney, Mark Goldrosen, said Jones did legitimate consulting work. David Duong’s lawyer, Jeff Schenk, said, “You cannot agree to a deal you didn’t know about.” Winston Chan, for Andy Duong, said Juarez “was, and is, the consummate hustler,” adding, “This case lives or dies with whether or not” jurors believe him.
The sides also read Juarez’s best-known text differently: “So we may go to jail… but we’re $100 million richer.” Juarez said he was “making light of the fact that we had just committed a crime.” The defense says the message was sent when the district attorney’s race, won by Pamela Price, was called, and was not about Thao.
Cross-examining FBI agent Katherine Barclay on Oct. 22 and 23, Erik Babcock, another of Andy Duong’s attorneys, drew agreement that the city never extended the contract or bought any units, and that there is no recording of his client discussing bribing the mayor, The Oaklandside reported. Barclay disagreed that the case rests mainly on Juarez. Babcock did not respond to an Inquirer request for comment sent Saturday.
What comes next
Oakland was not alone in its rush for housing: San Francisco and San Jose faced the same pressure in the early 2020s to add shelter quickly, and modular-housing makers pitched cities across the region. A former San Leandro council member, Bryan Azevedo, has pleaded guilty in a related scheme.
The trial, expected to last about six weeks, resumes Thursday, Nov. 5. Once prosecutors finish, four defense teams will cross-examine the witness whose credibility, by both sides’ account, the case may turn on.
Desmond Akers covers the cities and counties of the greater Bay Area, from Oakland and San Jose to the Peninsula, the North Bay and the East Bay suburbs, for Around the Region. More from Desmond Akers
