Orange County Supervisor Andrew Do has agreed to resign and plead guilty to accepting more than $550,000 in bribes to direct millions of dollars in COVID relief funds to a nonprofit connected to his daughter, federal prosecutors announced Tuesday.
At one point a rising and influential figure in Orange County politics, 62-year-old Do agreed to plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit bribery, federal officials said Tuesday, and he agreed to step down as a county supervisor as part of a plea agreement with federal authorities.
“This money was intended to provide meals to the people who needed most in our community,” said U.S. Atty. Martin Estrada during a news conference Tuesday. “The scheme essentially functioned like Robin Hood in reverse.”
The announcement was the culmination of a scandal that began unraveling for the Orange County power broker last year, when LAist reported that Do directed or voted to direct as much as $13.5 million to Viet America Society without disclosing that his daughter was connected to the group.
In the months that followed, the county demanded Viet America Society return the money after it launched an audit to look into the nonprofit. The county would end up filing a lawsuit in August against Viet America Society and censuring Do in September. Last week, Do’s chief of staff resigned after it was reported his girlfriend had worked for a nonprofit that received a lucrative county contract.
The county’s lawsuit accuses Viet America Society executives of “brazenly” plundering taxpayer money meant to feed needy seniors during the pandemic.
Among the executives named in the lawsuit was Do’s daughter, Rhiannon.
In early August, the county demanded that Viet America Society return $2.2 million after the organization failed to prove to auditors and the county how it spent the money, or that it had done the work it was hired to do.
In his plea agreement, Do admitted to receiving more than $550,000 in bribes between 2020 and 2023, officials said, and in exchange voted and directed for millions of dollars of state and federal COVID-related funds to go to Viet America Society, a charity that was supposed to provide meals for the elderly and needy.
But Do did not disclose the group’s connections to his daughter.
“While millions of Americans were dying from COVID-19, Orange County Supervisor Andrew Do was the fox in the hen house personified, raiding millions in federal pandemic relief funds and orchestrating the money intended to feed elderly and ailing residents to instead fill the pockets of insiders, himself and his loved ones all while portraying a public persona of a hometown hero guiding his constituents through the uncertainty and fear of a global pandemic,” said Orange County Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer, whose office worked with federal investigators in the case, in a statement. “No one is above the law in Orange County and these charges should serve as a powerful warning to elected officials everywhere that actions have consequences and justice will be swift and it will be decisive.”
Do also admitted to funneling $381,000 of the funds to purchase a home in Tustin, as well as $100,000 to his daughter.
Do has agreed to forfeit any assets from the bribery scheme, including the home in Tustin, officials said.
So far, government officials have seized more than $2.4 million, federal officials said.
