California Assembly Bill 2624, authored by Assemblywoman Mia Bonta, cleared initial committee and is set for review by the Assembly’s Judiciary Committee. Building on California’s Safe At Home Program, Bonta says it will “shield addresses of immigrant service providers from public records” and ban online posting of their personal data when intended to “threaten or incite violence.” Some opponents are informally calling AB 2624 the Stop Nick Shirley Act after the controversial influencer’s December 2025 gonzo-style video alleging fraud at Somali-run daycare centers in Minnesota went viral. While Shirley’s fans believe he “broke the story,” fraud in Minnesota was covered by print media, including the New York Times, prior to his video. In fact, Minnesota’s Star Tribune newspaper featured a cover story on Somali fraud over 25 years ago.
Shirley — known mostly for pranks like crashing celebrity weddings and paying Hispanic men $20 each to hold pro-Joe Biden and pro-immigration signs in front of the White House as a publicity stunt to support Donald Trump — was in the right place at the right time. He also had help. Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth confirmed that her Republican caucus told the videographer where to look. Another Republican said members of the party were “ready and willing to provide information … including some of the information that ended up in that video.”
While Shirley’s claims remain unsubstantiated, federal prosecutors were already investigating fraud cases in Minnesota, and the vast majority of the people charged are of Somali origin. “What we see in Minnesota is not a handful of bad actors committing crimes,” Joseph H. Thompson, the federal prosecutor overseeing the investigation, said. “It is staggering industrial-scale fraud.” A preliminary assessment suggested more than half of the $18 billion in taxpayer funds spent on 14 programs and intended to help low-income, vulnerable people since 2018 was likely stolen.
While critics (including me) say Shirley isn’t a journalist, his video has been viewed millions of times on social media, adding fuel to a timely fire about scams in Minnesota’s Somali community and building on investigations previously promised by President Trump.
Opponents of Bonta’s investigative journalism chill pill, including Republican Assemblymen Carl DeMaio and David Tangipa, argue the bill would punish journalists who expose wrongdoing in taxpayer-funded programs and allow removal of publicly recorded videos (contrary to what many believe, it is legal to record people in a public place). The law would also impose significant financial penalties, chilling transparency and investigative reporting. Tangipa called it “unconstitutional legislation that protects corruption.” For me, it also says something about Bonta’s nervousness over her own ties to corruption, along with her husband, Attorney General Rob Bonta, which I was first to expose on July 4, 2024 in The Voice.
When the FBI raided the home of Oakland mayor Sheng Thao, the offices of California Waste Solutions, and the homes of California Waste Solutions’ owners Andy Duong and his parents, David and Linda Duong in June 2024, Andy Duong’s Instagram account featured numerous photos of him with Rob and Mia Bonta. Duong even jetted off to the Philippines with Rob, whom he calls “his brother” in one particularly cringy image of him huddled with the Bontas in a limousine. In addition to Warriors games, trips to exotic lands, and limo rides, Duong shoveled cash to the current attorney general from his family’s businesses and their associates throughout his political career. Those associates, it turns out, are woven in a tangled web of pay-to-play politics, attempted murders, human trafficking, drugs, and warnings of a compromising video tied to Rob Bonta.
Not only are the Bontas tied to Andy Duong, but they’re also associated with a failed fuel company run by Mario Juarez, a longtime Oakland political operative who served on the Alameda County Democratic Central Committee and helped allies like Bonta maintain power on party committees. He and Rob Bonta were described in court filings as “close political allies” who “befriended politically powerful and resourced people.” Juarez donated modestly to Bonta (around $500 in 2016, plus more from associates), and later served as Bonta’s alternate on the committee, making calls on his behalf in 2021 and 2022.
Juarez was attacked in two separate incidents in May and June 2024, including once at 1211 Embarcadero, the address where FBI and IRS agents raided the offices of California Waste Solutions on June 20. That attack happened about a month before Juarez was shot at four times outside his home in the 1800 block of Fruitvale Avenue. Juarez turned FBI informant (known as “Co-Conspirator 1” in the case against Thao and the Duongs), likely not only fearing for his life but potential jail time for his own misdeeds.
Opponents of Bonta’s investigative journalism chill pill argue the bill would punish journalists who expose wrongdoing in taxpayer-funded programs and allow removal of publicly recorded videos.
Over the past several decades Juarez ran shady companies that are no longer in operation. Two former business partners told CBS Bay Area that in 2012 Juarez stiffed them for $230,000 they invested in his ventures — including a proposed fuel plant called Viridis. County records show regulators have filed nearly $100,000 worth of state and federal tax liens against Juarez since 2015. Yet, just one year later, then-Assemblyman Rob Bonta asked the California Energy Commission to award a $3.4 million grant to Viridis, where Juarez was the president and donated to Bonta’s reelection campaign.
In 2021, Mia Bonta ran for her husband’s former seat as a member of the California State Assembly from the 18th district and won. Her campaign office was located at 1241 High Street in Oakland — which also happens to be the address of Viridis Fuels. As of Oct. 25, 2019, Trademarkia listed the company as “dead/cancelled,” but in 2014, Viridis president Juarez sent a letter from the 1241 High Street address to Kristina Duong of California Waste Solutions. “Viridis Fuels is pleased to acknowledge our proposed support of California Waste Solutions’ expansion and operations. We appreciate the opportunity to work with your team as your reputation is exemplary,” Juarez writes, going on to describe a partnership that will include use of a six-acre parcel in the North Gateway Area of the former Army Base. California’s involvement in Viridis grew from that $3.4 million grant pushed by Rob Bonta to $38 million in bond financing.
When Juarez ran for the Alameda Democratic Central Committee, Mia Bonta endorsed him, presumably from the office on High Street they shared. In turn, Juarez made over $2,500 worth of donations to her campaign. Other donors included Sheng Thao, David Duong, and Mon Kil Quan. Investigators allege that Quan was one of the straw donors who illegally made contributions on Andy Duong’s behalf. According to corporate filings, Quan was the owner of Music Cafe, a downtown Oakland restaurant and karaoke lounge. While Quan was the listed owner, investigators believe Andy Duong was the actual proprietor.
Drugs, human trafficking, and an ominous letter
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. In a 208-page file, four undercover agents describe making multiple late-night visits to the cafe in 2018, where they were able to obtain ketamine and ecstasy from the workers. Approximately 20 female “companions” were brought into their karaoke room for them to pick 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. 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.
In May 2024, Juarez sent Rob Bonta an ominous letter warning that Andy Duong possessed damning surveillance video footage of him. “I hold you in high regard for your commitment to justice and integrity, which is why I feel compelled to bring this issue to your attention,” Juarez writes. “It is also important that you know that Andy Duong in particular has a recording of you in a compromising situation and that he routinely engages in entertaining elected and other officials to extract recordings without their knowledge for later use in blackmail circumstances.” Juarez said release of the recordings could cause “public embarrassment at the least” or expose “illicit activities, including the use of drugs.”
In his East Bay Insiders newsletter, Steve Tavares says East Bay political circles “have long traded rumors about Andy Duong allegedly capturing public officials in embarrassing situations.” Tavares also notes that Juarez dropped broader allegations in the letter, accusing the Duong family of “money laundering, illegal political donations, falsification of contracts, and exploitation of straw donors,” and even “facilitating prostitution for elected officials, including minors.”
Juarez also told Bonta he feared for his life. “I do feel at this point that I am subject to possible murder attempts as this was told to me by Andy Duong,” he wrote. The May 9 letter to Bonta was sent exactly one month before Juarez exchanged gunfire with assailants in front of his home.
In November 2025, Bonta acknowledged $468,000 from his 2026 reelection campaign went to the law firm Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati — the most money ever spent on legal help by any candidate running for statewide office in California. Dan Newman, Bonta’s senior adviser, confirmed to KCRA 3 reporter Ashley Zavala that the payments were for legal advice in the East Bay bribery investigation that involves Oakland’s ex-mayor Sheng Thao and the Duong family.
Not only are the Bontas linked to Andy Duong and Mario Juarez, but they’re also associated with a failed fuel company run by Juarez and a karaoke bar that was busted for human trafficking and narcotics sales where Duong allegedly laundered campaign funds and “entertained” politicos. Juarez sent a letter to Rob Bonta intimating that Duong had a “compromising video” of him, though Bonta denies the video exists. Five months after the letter, Bonta acknowledged spending half a million dollars for “legal advice” tied to the Duong and Thao investigation.
Years of ‘quiet corruption’
While the Oakland scandal is salacious, it’s far from the first time the Bontas have drawn criticism for what I call “quiet corruption” — the more mundane but equally bad variety. In 2023, Mia Bonta agreed to chair a budget subcommittee overseeing the California Department of Justice, which is led by her husband. Even the left-leaning Los Angeles Times editorial board called out the obvious conflict of interest, stating, “There are 79 other Assembly members, none of whom are married to the state’s attorney general, who could reasonably serve as a replacement.”
The Los Angeles Daily News also reported that, as an assemblyman, Rob Bonta made use of the power to “behest” contributions from companies with business before the state. After Mia Bonta founded a nonprofit called Literacy Lab in 2014, her husband helped her fund it by “encouraging” Pacific Gas & Electric to donate $3,500 in 2015 and another $6,500 in 2016. CalMatters also reported that Rob Bonta created the Bonta California Progress Foundation in 2017, “behested” $75,000 from “interest groups that lobby him at the Capitol,” and in 2018 donated $25,000 to his wife’s nonprofit. Literacy Lab’s IRS tax return for 2018 shows that Mia Bonta’s compensation that year was $142,866.
Between 2013 and 2020, then-Assemblyman Rob Bonta “behested” more than $5.8 million from unions, banks, health care companies, tech giants, and others for various causes near and dear to his family’s heart.
There are dozens more examples of Bonta caught with his donations down. For example, just days before announcing that he wouldn’t pursue criminal charges against Southern California Edison over its role in starting the 2018 Woolsey Fire in Los Angeles County, the attorney general received $72,000 in campaign donations from attorneys employed by the law firm Hueston Hennigan LLP, including partners who directly represented SoCal Edison on the case. Then there was Bonta’s battle over California’s “gig worker law,” where he received nearly $100,000 from lawyers at firm Keker, Van Nest & Peters, which has long worked with Lyft (and Bonta himself worked at the firm as a litigation associate from 1999 to 2003). He also accepted nearly $40,000 from attorneys employed by Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, which represented Uber in similar litigation.
Bonta seems to have a particular thing with energy companies. In Jan. 2025, ExxonMobil sued him, alleging that California’s top cop has been motivated by “foreign influence, personal ambition, and a murky source of financing rife with conflicting business interests.” The ExxonMobil lawsuit alleges Bonta and a collection of environmental groups engaged in business disparagement, defamation, interference with prospective business relationships and contracts, and civil conspiracy. “This suit is about a state office holder’s abuse of the public trust,” the complaint states.
Federal Judge Michael J. Truncale of the Eastern District of Texas handed down a decision in February allowing ExxonMobil’s defamation lawsuit against the attorney general to move forward. “Bonta believes his email was official communication that just so happened to include a campaign contribution link,” the judge said in his opinion. “It is the link’s presence that changes things. Here, the contribution request betrays the email’s true nature: a campaign promotion. Campaigning is not within Bonta’s scope of employment.”
After my original July 2024 exposé on the Bontas, I received a letter from East Bay attorney Jason Bezis. “The Bontas led an effort to appoint David Brown, a Contra Costa County domiciliary, to a vacant Alameda County supervisor’s seat in November 2021,” the letter read. “Attorney General Bonta had to recuse [himself] from handling my clients’ quo warranto application to remove Mr. Brown from public office. … The Bontas have as much respect for the rule of law as Donald Trump and his team do. They shamelessly warp legal standards and political norms in order to boost and protect their friends and allies and to shield them from accountability.”
That brings us back to the East Bay bribery investigation, where, in a December 2024 filing, Alameda County Senior Assistant District Attorney Kwixuan Maloof wrote that Bonta was “too compromised” to take over the Duong and Juarez cases without violating a state law intended to prevent conflicts of interests in prosecutions. “They have publicly endorsed each other and have used the same office for their business dealings,” the motion said. “In local Democratic political circles, the defendants and the Bontas’ extensive intertwined political and business dealings are widely known.”
It’s been nearly two years since my original investigative report on the Bontas ran here in the Voice, yet the golden couple of East Bay politics remains, for the most part, unscathed. I’m glad I got this update published before Mia Bonta’s draconian anti-journalism bill passes or it might have landed me in the slammer. Unfortunately for corrupt officials, it wouldn’t have stopped me from doing my job, which is to see them removed from theirs.
