Sheng Thao and Andre Jones: Charges, Informant, and Trial Date

Former Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao was indicted in January 2025 on federal bribery and honest services fraud charges, alongside her longtime partner Andre Jones and California Waste Solutions executives David Duong and his son Andy Duong. All four have pleaded not guilty. A joint trial is scheduled to begin October 19, 2026, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.¹

The Charges

A federal grand jury returned an eight-count indictment on January 9, 2025. The counts are conspiracy to commit bribery, bribery concerning programs receiving federal funds, conspiracy to commit honest services mail and wire fraud, honest services mail fraud, and two counts of honest services wire fraud. Andy Duong faces one additional count of making false statements to government agents.¹

All four defendants first appeared on January 17, 2025, before U.S. Magistrate Judge Kandis A. Westmore and entered pleas of not guilty.²

What Prosecutors Say Happened

The core allegation is a quid pro quo between the Duongs and Thao’s 2022 mayoral campaign. Prosecutors say the Duongs and a business associate, Mario Juarez, financed negative campaign mailers targeting Thao’s opponents during the election, then, after she took office in January 2023, funneled money to Jones in exchange for official acts.³

According to the indictment, Jones received $95,000 from the Duongs for what authorities describe as a “no-show job” at Evolutionary Homes, a modular housing company the Duongs co-founded with Juarez. The payments came in five installments: $20,000 in December 2022, $20,000 in January 2023, $5,000 in early April 2023, $35,000 later that April, and $35,000 in November 2023. Prosecutors say the Duongs initially offered Jones $300,000 and that a March 2023 meeting produced an arrangement under which Jones could receive up to $3 million if Oakland purchased 300 modular units from Evolutionary Homes.³

In return, the indictment alleges, Thao agreed to commit the city to buying modular housing units from Evolutionary Homes, extend Oakland’s recycling contract with California Waste Solutions, help with a CWS land deal at the former Oakland Army Base, and let the Duongs and Juarez pick appointees for city leadership positions.³

Jones, Thao’s partner of roughly ten years and a former chief of staff to Oakland Council Member Rebecca Kaplan, is cast in the indictment as the conduit. Prosecutors say Thao directed payments to him to avoid creating a “paper trail” tying the money to her, and that the defendants generated false invoices to make Jones’s role look like a legitimate job.¹⁴

As circumstantial evidence that Thao personally benefited, prosecutors point to a shift in household finances. Before the alleged payments, Thao paid all or half of the couple’s rent. Starting in January 2023, shortly after Jones began receiving money, he took over the full rent and increased his share of utilities and phone bills.¹

The Deals That Never Closed

One feature of the case worth noting is that the official acts Thao allegedly promised largely never happened. Oakland never bought any modular housing units from Evolutionary Homes. The San Francisco Chronicle reported that the company “engaged in discussions but never made it to the point of negotiating with the city or officially applying for funding,” and Councilmember Carroll Fife has said the proposal would have required competitive bidding and had no identified funding.⁵⁶

The CWS land deal at the former Oakland Army Base also stalled. In May 2025, the city terminated its lease and development agreement with CWS, citing missed deadlines, missing documentation, and an unpaid $425,000 extension fee. CWS said it had offered to buy the property outright for over $8 million, but a city spokesperson called that figure “under market price,” and the City Council never acted on the offer.⁷

How the Case Became Public

FBI agents raided the homes of Thao and Jones and the residences and offices of David and Andy Duong on June 20, 2024. Roughly two dozen agents carried boxes from Thao’s home in Oakland’s Lincoln Highlands neighborhood.⁸

Four days later, Thao told reporters, “I have done nothing wrong,” and described a recall effort already underway against her as driven by “a handful of billionaires” from San Francisco and Piedmont.⁹¹⁰¹¹ The indictment followed in January 2025.

The Informant at the Center of the Case

The government’s investigation drew heavily on Mario Juarez, an Oakland businessman and former city council candidate identified in the indictment as “Co-Conspirator 1.” Juarez co-founded Evolutionary Homes with the Duongs and first met with the FBI in June 2024, about two weeks before the raids. He has not been charged. Prosecutors have acknowledged Juarez appeared motivated in part by “revenge against the Duongs” and a desire for leniency, but say they disclosed those biases when applying for search warrants.¹²

The government contends the case does not rise or fall on Juarez. Prosecutors say they had substantial documentary evidence independent of him, including text messages, financial records, phone records, and iCloud data, and that his statements provided “context and completeness” rather than the backbone of the case.¹²

Defense lawyers have called Juarez a serial fraudster. Their filings say he was sued roughly 33 times between 1992 and 2022, often over fraud allegations from business partners, and argue the FBI omitted that history from its warrant applications and selectively edited text messages between Juarez and Andy Duong that contained racially charged language about Jones.¹²¹³

A June 9, 2024 shooting at Juarez’s Fruitvale home, three days after his first FBI meeting, has become a flashpoint. Juarez told police and the FBI that two people broke into his vehicle and shot at him and that he returned fire, and he alleged the Duongs had orchestrated the attack. An FBI review of surveillance footage and ShotSpotter data later concluded Juarez likely fired first. Oakland police arrested two suspects in December 2024, but the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office released them without filing charges and has said the matter is under review.¹²¹⁴

Pretrial Rulings and the Defense

All four defendants moved to suppress the evidence seized in the June 2024 raids, arguing the warrants were tainted by the FBI’s reliance on Juarez and its failure to disclose his record. On April 27, 2026, U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers denied the motions and rejected the defendants’ request for an evidentiary hearing.¹⁵

Gonzalez Rogers wrote that “defendants present no credible evidence that the government intended to deceive or acted with reckless disregard,” and noted investigators had assembled “significant documentary evidence” independent of Juarez before seeking the warrants. She also found that the omission of certain racially charged texts did not invalidate the warrants, agreeing with prosecutors that agents had focused on “the actual hard evidence.”¹⁶¹⁵

Beyond attacking Juarez, the defense has argued the documents do not show a knowing agreement to a bribery scheme. Thao’s lawyers have stressed that the alleged deals never came to fruition, that the modular housing “letter of interest” was never signed, and that the government’s iCloud notes and text messages amount to “fever-dream ideas” rather than proof of conspiracy. Jones’s attorneys have separately argued he declined to participate in activities he believed would be illegal, specifically campaign mailers.¹³

Thao is represented by Jeffrey Tsai and Darryl Tarver of DLA Piper. Jones has separate counsel, Mark Goldrosen and Shawn Halbert.¹³ Prosecutors have confirmed no wiretaps were used; the discovery consists of roughly 140 gigabytes of data across 250,000 files, including search warrants, financial records, text messages, and phone data.¹⁷

A Related Guilty Plea

The broader investigation has already produced one conviction. On February 11, 2026, former San Leandro City Councilmember Bryan Azevedo pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit honest services wire fraud and one count of making false statements to federal agents.¹⁸¹⁹²⁰

Trial Date and Scope

With the suppression motions denied and all four defendants still pleading not guilty, the case is set for trial on October 19, 2026, before Judge Gonzalez Rogers. Prosecutors estimate three weeks to present their case, with the full trial expected to run up to five weeks. Thao’s lawyers have said they will not seek to move the trial out of Oakland.²¹²²

1
U.S. Department of Justice. Former Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao, Partner, and Two Local Businessmen Charged
2
The Oaklandside. Federal Judge Denies Motion to Suppress Evidence in Oakland Corruption Case
3
The Oaklandside. Oakland Corruption FBI Indictment Explained
4
KTVU. Who Is Andre Jones
5
San Francisco Chronicle. Oakland FBI Probe Into Thao and the Duongs
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The Oaklandside. Oakland FBI Investigation and Evolutionary Homes
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The Oaklandside. California Waste Solutions and Oakland Army Base
8
KQED. FBI Raids Home of Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao
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ABC7 News. Sheng Thao FBI Raid Oakland Mayor Speaks
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Governing. Two Months After Recall, Former Oakland Mayor Indicted
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The Guardian. Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao Recalled
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KQED. FBI Informant Tested Corruption Case Against Oakland’s Former Mayor
13
The Oaklandside. Thao, Jones, and Duong Evidence Motion
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ABC7 News. Oakland Shootout Tied to Sheng Thao Corruption Case
15
Press Democrat. Federal Judge Denies Bid by Sheng Thao, Others to Toss Evidence
16
KQED. Sheng Thao Corruption Case Judge Confirms Identity of Key FBI Informant
17
KTVU. Judge Corrects Sheng Thao’s Defense Attorney
18
U.S. Department of Justice. Former San Leandro City Council Member Pleads Guilty
19
KQED. Former San Leandro City Councilmember Pleads Guilty in Federal Bribery Case
20
The Oaklandside. San Leandro Councilmember Bryan Azevedo Guilty Plea
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KQED. Judge Sets 2026 Trial Date in Bribery Case of Former Oakland Mayor
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KTVU. Federal Judge Denies Motion to Dismiss Evidence in Corruption Case