“I believe he did come, yeah.”
— Mario Juarez when confronted on the witness stand about Attorney General Rob Bonta visiting the Evolutionary Homes showroom, Nov. 9, 2026
On July 4, 2024, The Voice of San Francisco published an article titled The Bonta money trail, which detailed the decade-long, financially advantageous relationship between Attorney General Rob Bonta and his wife, Mia, and the Duong family. Bonta previously served as a member of the California State Assembly for the 18th district from 2012 to 2021 and as a member of the Alameda City Council from 2010 to 2012. When the FBI raided the home of recalled Oakland mayor Sheng Thao, the offices of California Waste Solutions (CWS), and the homes of CWS’s owners Andy Duong and his parents, David and Linda Duong, Andy Duong’s Instagram account, resplendent with selfies of him and some of the biggest names in California politics, came to light.
While the photos appear to be taken at events (posing with current governor Gavin Newsom and governor-elect Xavier Becerra, for example), the ones of Bonta and his wife, now District 18 Assemblywoman Mia Bonta, are far more personal. Duong calls Rob Bonta “his brother” in one particularly cringy image of him huddled with the couple in a limousine. In addition to Warriors games and limo rides, Rob and Mia Bonta celebrated Rob’s birthday with David Duong, president of the Vietnamese American Business Association (VABA) and CWS. Images also show the Bontas attended VABA’s 2024 holiday dinner cruise, just six months before the FBI raids. VABA’s website describes the cruise as “the unparalleled opportunity for attendees to mingle with a diverse group of business leaders, community influencers, and local and state politicians. These interactions fostered valuable connections and laid the groundwork for future collaborations…”
For over a decade, the Duong family and their associates have shoveled cash to the current attorney general and his assemblymember wife. Rob Bonta returned over $155,000 in campaign contributions received from the Duongs, but he didn’t return money donated by Duong associates.
Mia Bonta endorsed Mario Juarez, the government’s cooperating witness, when he ran unsuccessfully for the Alameda Democratic Central Committee. In turn, Juarez made over $2,500 worth of donations to her campaign. Other donors included Sheng Thao, David Duong (Andy’s father), and Mon Kil Quan. Investigators allege that Quan was one of the straw donors who illegally made contributions on Andy Duong’s behalf.
Rob Bonta took nearly $36,000 from Quan, listed as the owner of the company that ran Music Cafe and held its liquor license, and Charlie Ngo, a manager at the karaoke bar. In 2017, ARDA LLC, a company owned by Quan that ran the Music Cafe, also gave Bonta’s campaign $1,500.
While Quan was listed as the owner of Music Cafe, investigators believe Andy Duong was the actual proprietor. After a 2018 Alcoholic Beverage Control raid, Music Cafe lost its liquor license. Two women who allegedly sold drugs and agreed to provide sex to undercover agents were prosecuted by the Alameda district attorney’s office.
According to filings, four undercover agents made multiple late-night visits to the cafe in 2018, where they said they were able to obtain ketamine and ecstasy. Approximately 20 female “companions” were brought into their karaoke room for them to “choose from,” where agents said they paid $100 each for the women to join them. During the raid, cash and narcotics were also confiscated.
Another alleged straw donor, Music Cafe manager Charlie Ngo, was one of three people arrested in 2018 (two counts of felony possession of ketamine for sale were later dismissed). An employee originally facing 11 counts including felony human trafficking, sale and possession of narcotics, and pimping and pandering, pleaded no contest to conspiracy to commit a crime.
BONTA VISITED EVOLUTIONARY HOMES SHOWROOM
On Nov. 9, 2026, during the Oakland corruption trial, the jury heard that California’s top law-enforcement officer had visited the building at the center of the federal bribery case. Shawn Halbert, attorney for Thao’s longtime partner Andre Jones (also charged in the case), said to Juarez, “In 2022, you had a lot of clout because of your relationship with Rob Bonta and his wife, Mia Bonta.” She then informed Juarez that she had seen a photograph of the attorney general at the Evolutionary Homes showroom, founded by Juarez with David and Andy Duong to sell converted shipping containers to house the homeless. “I believe he did come, yeah,” Juarez responded.
The showroom was located at 1211 Embarcadero, a three-story waterfront office building on Port of Oakland land. It is the headquarters of California Waste Solutions (CWS), the Duong family’s recycling company. In June of 2016, the Port’s board, on its consent calendar, assigned the ground lease to “David Duong, dba Duong Estuary Cove, LLC,” for a $1,000 fee. Evolutionary Homes LLC was registered in Sept. of 2022 at Suite 300 in the same building.
When the Port writes to the Duongs’ building entity, it addresses the letter “c/o Wellington Property Company.” Wellington happens to be the property-management firm tied to John Loh, a former Port Commission president whose partner in a separate housing company is former Oakland mayor Elihu Harris.
In August of 2019, the Fair Political Practices Commission opened a case against Andy Duong involving alleged laundered campaign contributions. That means when Attorney General Bonta visited Evolutionary Homes, he did so at the behest of a man who was the subject of an open state campaign-finance enforcement case and who made hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations to Bonta’s campaigns and causes. (As of publication, the case is still open.)
TINY HOMES AND INFLUENCE FOR SALE
Evolutionary Homes sold container homes to governments. Its operating agreement gave the Duongs 47.5 percent for $950,055 and Juarez 20 percent, with a goal of 100 units. The marketing deck priced each unit at $300,000. Customers included elected officials, and in 2023 the Duongs and Juarez were working them hard:
• Oakland: Prosecutors allege the city was to buy units as part of the arrangement between the parties now on trial. An Apple Note pulled from Juarez’s iCloud lists the city buying 100 units. After a January 2024 call, prosecutors say, Mayor Thao had City Administrator Jestin Johnson tour the showroom.
• Alameda County: On June 1, 2023, Supervisor Nate Miley emailed county housing staff asking them to hear Juarez’s pitch on “modular housing for homeless and other vulnerable populations.” Nothing came of it.
• Santa Clara County: Supervisor Cindy Chavez toured the Oakland facility with Andy and David Duong in April 2023. “There was no further action taken,” she said.
So, who brought Attorney General Bonta to the showroom? Juarez had already done the Bontas favors. Mia Bonta’s 2021 Assembly campaign ran out of his office at 1241 High Street, and she held her victory party there; Juarez testified that Rob Bonta also attended. Juarez also testified that he had
served as Rob Bonta’s alternate on the Alameda County Democratic Central Committee. Asked under oath whether he had political access, Juarez put it plainly: “Yes, we had access to individuals that were elected members.”
Margarita Lacabe, who sat on that party committee from 2010 to 2020, swore in a Dec. 2024 declaration that Juarez and Bonta were “close political allies.”
Juarez’s own 2012 campaign site, archived on Sept. 5, 2012, lists “Alameda Vice-Mayor Rob Bonta” among the elected officials endorsing him. There is no record showing why the attorney general went to the showroom or who specifically invited him. Still, the timeline of contributions and actions by Bonta remains suspicious, as does the 10-plus year relationship with Juarez and the Duong family:
• 2013–2014: Form 700 compilations show tickets, a dinner, and a gift basket from CWS, plus small Andy Duong items, some marked reimbursed.
• 2016: Andy Duong’s internal “Political Analysis” email, quoted by the FPPC, called Bonta “one of the best allies… and will deliver whatever we ask for.”
• 2017: Andy Duong posted a photo of “Uncle Assemblyman Rob Bonta” holding Andy’s infant child.
• 2018: Bonta signed a letter urging San Jose to consider CWS for a city contract.
• 2019-2024: Sheng Thao’s website quotes “Hon. Rob Bonta, Assemblymember” endorsing her city council campaign, and lists him first among featured endorsers of her mayoral run in 2021, and again in June 2024, with Mia Bonta also listed. Rob Bonta introduced Thao at her November 2021 mayoral launch.
• 2021: When Bonta was named attorney general, Andy Duong congratulated him as “Brother.” Bonta received thousands of dollars from David and Andy Duong that year, most of it returned due to “a pending DOJ matter from before he took office.”
• 2023: Two years after returning the Duongs’ money over a “pending DOJ matter,” Bonta’s committee took $9,100 from David Duong on June 30 and December 9 — the same year as the showroom visit.
• 2024: In January, Rob and Mia Bonta attended the VABA holiday dinner cruise as guests of David Duong, president of VABA and CWS. Just six months later, on June 20, FBI agents searched Thao’s home and the Duong family properties. Ten days later, on June 30, Bonta’s campaign announced it would redirect $155,100 in Duong-linked contributions to charity “out of an abundance of caution.”
A BLACKMAIL VIDEO AND $468,000 IN LEGAL FEES
The now infamous “blackmail video” letter is the strangest document in the Bonta files. On May 9, 2024, six days after Juarez was locked out of the Evolutionary Homes office and, he says, beaten by Duong associates, he
wrote to Attorney General Bonta claiming to have firsthand knowledge of Duong money laundering, illegal donations, and straw donors. Then he went further: Andy Duong, he wrote, “has a recording of you in a compromising situation,” and routinely entertained officials “to extract recordings without their knowledge for later use in blackmail circumstances.”
Bonta’s campaign confirmed he received the letter and forwarded it to the FBI. Bonta said emphatically that there was no video. Both Duongs deny the letter’s allegations. Bonta told the San Francisco Chronicle in Nov. of 2025 that the FBI first reached out because “they thought I could be the victim of extortion or blackmail. As it turns out, I was not.”
A court exhibit filed in Sept. of 2026 references notes of a 2024 FBI interview with Bonta and a subpoena request for AT&T data on his phone. Bonta says he answered every question and had “a very clear, opposite sense from being a target.” Despite saying he wasn’t worried, Bonta spent over $468,000 in campaign funds on legal advice connected to the federal inquiry.
Coming up in Part 2: Mario Juarez, the connector — how a twice-defeated city council candidate built a political machine out of a real estate office with Kathy Neal, Elihu Harris, Larry Reid, Shawn Wilson, and Nate Miley along the way.
Editor’s Note: The defendants have pleaded not guilty and are presumed innocent. No one else named in the series is charged in this case, and a connection is not an accusation.
