Ex-OC Supervisor Andrew Do must pay more than $800K in restitution
Former Orange County Supervisor Andrew Do was ordered Monday to pay $878,230.80 in restitution for his involvement in a bribery scheme that saw millions in taxpayer dollars diverted from feeding needy seniors, leading authorities to label him a “Robin Hood in reverse.”
Federal prosecutors had asked the judge to order Do to pay back the roughly $878,000 amount, while Orange County was seeking the return of millions more. Kevin Dunn, an attorney for Orange County, had asked the judge for the higher amount "to restore the full measure of the damage to the county." The judge ultimately sided with prosecutors.
Do did not attend Monday's hearing. His attorney told the court Do was preparing to turn himself in by Friday to begin serving a five-year federal prison term.
Monday’s order brings the total taxpayer money expected to be recovered from the scheme to roughly $6 million. The roughly $878,000 in restitution from Do would be on top of an estimated $5 million in previously forfeited property and bank accounts. Ultimately, it will be up to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi whether the roughly $5 million in forfeited assets will actually go to Orange County or another recipient, authorities said.
By contrast, the restitution ordered today is expected to go directly to Orange County taxpayers. Orange County Supervisor Katrina Foley, who remarked “I'm not surprised he didn't show up,” said the money recovered will first be used to reimburse the county for out-of-pocket costs and then the rest will go into the county's General Fund.
Do has a net worth of $1.5 million, according to a June memo from the judge. "He has the ability to pay a fine," Selna wrote in the memo.
What happens next?
O.C. District Attorney Todd Spitzer said Do would be required to pay $250,000 of the total restitution amount within 30 days. He also told LAist that authorities are continuing to pursue the recovery of additional dollars from the scheme.
“We’re not done,” Spitzer said. “This does not prohibit us in any way from collecting restitution with respect to charged and potentially uncharged defendants."
"I have been committed to making the county as whole as possible from day one. That’s always been my goal," Spitzer added. "I didn’t anticipate it would all come from Andrew Do. There obviously are other people who are financial responsible.”
He added. “There’s a chapter that’s now closed. But we still have many more chapters to write.”
Elsewhere, the reaction to the ruling was immediate — and mostly reflected disappointment that the number wasn't higher to better reflect Do's misdeeds.
He admitted in his plea deal that about $8 million was diverted from feeding needy seniors. His plea deal does not cover an additional $3 million he directed to another nonprofit group, Hand to Hand Relief Organization, whose leader is now being prosecuted in connection with the meal money scheme.
What was the reaction to the judge's order?
Foley said she was "disappointed" as the county is still out around $10 million from the schemes.
Orange County Supervisor Janet Nguyen, who replaced Do on the Board of Supervisors, said "I’m disappointed in the judge’s ruling, however there is a process to obtain $5 million in funds seized from bank accounts and the sales of homes belonging to Andrew Do’s daughter and businesses associated with his scheme. We will work with the U.S. Attorney to obtain these funds to return to the residents he stole from."
Margaret Carrigan, a former employee of the O.C. Health Care Agency, was at the hearing on Monday and said the decision "diminishes my belief in the justice system. This defendant took advantage of poor people in a time of crisis and made decisions that benefited himself and his family, and he knew full well what he was doing, and it's hard for me to see people like that, that we trust and vote into office, that they can do that to their constituents."
Orange County Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento said he was not surprised by the ruling.
"The remainder of the funds, taken from vulnerable seniors during a crisis, needs to be returned. The county should continue to pursue every avenue to recover these funds from all parties involved in the former Supervisor’s scheme," he said in a written statement.
Why the county asked for millions more
Dunn, the county’s attorney, told the judge ahead of the sentencing that Do should have to pay the full $10 million-plus in contracts back to the county because it was foreseeable the money was being diverted from its intended target of feeding the needy.
Dunn said that as a sophisticated person — a former public defender, DA prosecutor, and a then-elected official — Do would have been aware that when he gave county dollars to a group that was then providing bribes to him, “it is then completely foreseeable that they may not be spending the rest of that money in a proper manner.”
He also pointed to Do’s admission in the plea deal that he kept awarding the money “in reckless disregard” for whether they were actually going to meals:
“Defendant knew that some of the funds VAS received from the county were being used to pay bribes instead of to provide meals to the elderly or infirm,” Do wrote as part of the plea agreement. “Defendant nonetheless intentionally voted on the contracts in reckless disregard as to whether the funds were being properly used.”
Dunn added that the victims in the case are “actually the hungry residents of Orange County who suffered.”
The judge ultimately did not agree to the county’s request for $10-plus million, instead siding with the federal prosecutors’ request for around $878,000 in restitution — an amount limited to the bribes Do admitted to taking through his daughters.
Where was Andrew Do?
The hearing on Monday was paused before it could get underway. Do was not in attendance, and the judge wanted to know why attorneys for Do hadn't filed a waiver from Do giving up his right to appear, as would be required for such hearings. Do's attorney's said he was preparing to turn himself in for his prison sentence. The judge then called a recess, adding that the hearing was not just a "mere technicality."
After almost an hour, proceedings resumed once the waiver was filed.
Carrigan, the former county employee, said Do's failure to show was disrespectful. " I don't believe that there was any reason that he shouldn't have been here."
Outside of court, Paul Meyer, Andrew Do's attorney, told LAist that the "the court's ruling says it all." He did not comment further.
What's the backstory
Do pleaded guilty last year to a federal bribery charge for accepting kickbacks from the over $10 million in federal COVID relief dollars he directed to a nonprofit, Viet America Society. Federal prosecutors said only around 15% of that money went where it was intended: to feed hungry seniors in need during the pandemic.
The criminal probe was launched in response to an LAist investigation of the money Do awarded the group, and the failure to account for it.
Do has been ordered to turn himself in to serve a five-year federal prison term by Friday.
Following the money
Ahead of Monday’s hearing, county officials filed a request seeking over $10 million in restitution. They based their request on the amounts Do directed to the nonprofit as supervisor.
“The county’s entitlement to restitution ... is not limited to the amount that [Do] personally gained through bribes but should be based on the county’s actual losses that was caused by [Do’s] criminal conduct,” an attorney for the county wrote in the request.
But federal prosecutors asked for a much lower amount — the nearly $900,000 in bribes they say Do received from the nonprofit through an elaborate scheme, which saw the kickbacks channeled through his daughters to cover the trail. And so they asked that restitution be set at $878,230.80 and said that there was not enough evidence to prove fraud beyond the bribes.
Do’s attorneys had their own request — they wanted the federal prosecutor’s amount to closer to $800,000 — discounted by the amount he said his daughter Rhiannon Do earned by working what he estimated to be 40 hours a week for a group connected to the nonprofit while she was in law school.
Supervisor Foley noted one grim upside to the scandal: "I'll be happy when we can kind of close this chapter in the county’s history book, we've learned a lot of lessons from this,” she said, adding “We have a lot more public corruption protections in place than we had prior, so that's a good thing for the taxpayers.”
