The Brief

Former Orange County Supervisor Andrew Do was sentenced Monday to five years in federal prison, after an LAist investigation and federal probe led him to resign and plead guilty to a conspiracy to steal millions of taxpayer dollars meant to feed needy seniors.

The penalty was issued by James V. Selna, a U.S. District Court judge, in front of a packed Santa Ana courtroom as Do sat and watched with his attorneys. It was the maximum penalty possible under the federal bribery charge Do pleaded guilty to.

Do is ordered to report to Lompoc, a low-security federal prison in Santa Barbara County, by Aug. 15.

Selna said Do's breach of his duty is a "real crime" as he handed down the sentence.

“Public corruption wreaks damage far beyond the loss to the county. It undermines the public’s trust of the government. It undermines the government’s ability to function," he said.

At Monday’s hearing, Do’s attorneys asked for a four-year sentence, pointing to the recommendation of federal probation officials. But Selna said anything less than the five-year maximum would fail to reflect the gravity of Do’s crime.

“I just do not believe that any sentence less than the maximum reflects the seriousness of the crime,” Selna said.

Selna ordered a hearing on Aug. 11 to determine the amount of restitution owed to taxpayers. He said Do and his daughter Rhiannon Do, who was involved in the scheme, would be "jointly liable" for paying the money back.

Orange County Supervisor Andrew Do at an Orange County Board of Supervisors meeting on Nov. 28, 2023.

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Nick Gerda / LAist

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Andrew Do declined to speak when the judge asked if he had anything to add about the sentencing and did not respond to questions from an LAist reporter as he exited the courtroom. Paul Meyer, his attorney, said via text message that given the upcoming hearing, no response is appropriate at this time.

Andrew Do's plea agreement says that he gave up his right to appeal the sentence.

It’s the first time in decades that an O.C. supervisor has been convicted of corruption, according to prosecutors.

After an LAist investigation exposed millions in unaccounted-for coronavirus relief funds Andrew Do quietly routed to a newly-created nonprofit connected to his youngest daughter, federal law enforcement launched a probe.

Facing the prospect of being prosecuted on multiple felonies, Andrew Do ultimately admitted that of $9.3 million in COVID relief money he directed to the Huntington Beach nonprofit, only 15% actually went to feed seniors and people with disabilities as earmarked. The other roughly $8 million was diverted, Do admitted.

Andrew Do also admitted to accepting over $550,000 in bribes for directing and voting in favor of more than $10 million in COVID funds to the nonprofit, Viet America Society. Many of the bribes were routed through roughly $400,000 in down payment money that Rhiannon Do, the younger of his two daughters, used to buy a house in Tustin, according to facts he ultimately admitted to as part of his plea deal.

Law enforcement searched the Tustin home of Rhiannon Do, on Aug. 22, 2024.

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Jason Armond

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When then-U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada announced the plea deal last October, he said, “Mr. Do and his co-conspirators stole money from the poor.” Estrada called the conspiracy “Robin Hood in reverse.”

Andrew Do pleaded guilty last fall to a single federal charge of bribery, in a deal that spared his younger daughter from prosecution. As part of the deal, Rhiannon Do admitted to committing one federal and three state crimes in connection with the home purchase, including perjury and mortgage fraud. She was a law student at UC Irvine at the time. The plea deal required her to keep attending law school — she graduated last month — and to study for the bar exam to become an attorney or find a job.

Andrew Do’s wife and the mother of his two daughters is Cheri Pham, an Orange County Superior Court judge. She was the supervising judge overseeing the criminal courts when her husband started directing meal money to the nonprofit. Later, she was promoted to the second-highest-ranking judgeship at the court, a position she held from the beginning of 2023 until the end of last year when she was reassigned to family court. She has not been publicly accused of wrongdoing.

O.C. Supervisor Andrew Do (center left) in December 2023 with his daughter Rhiannon Do (right) and wife Cheri Pham (between them).

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Screenshot of a public video posted by Do’s official YouTube channel

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Response to the sentencing

In a statement, O.C. Supervisor Katrina Foley commended the U.S. Department of Justice for holding Do "fully accountable."

“No one is above the law. This maximum sentencing of Andrew Do sends a strong message that we do not tolerate public corruption in Orange County,” Foley said. “Andrew Do enriched himself off the suffering of others, betraying our residents and violating his oath of office.”

O.C. Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento told LAist he would have preferred a longer sentence.

Sarmiento added that the county is working to conduct a third-party audit of all contracts that came from Andrew Do’s office and any county deals made during the pandemic when oversight was lax. He added that the county has work to do to restore the public's confidence in government.

“I do think that it's going to take a very long time to re-establish the public's trust in the county,” Sarmiento said. “It takes a long time to build, but it's very easily eroded and damaged.”

O.C. Supervisor Doug Chaffee told LAist he also wished Do's sentence had been longer. Chaffee and Sarmiento applauded the recent federal indictments of Do’s conspirators, Peter Pham, of Viet America Society, and Thanh Huong Nguyen, of Hand to Hand Relief.

"Maybe we can finally come to a conclusion in a just way that will play itself out over time,” Chaffee said of the indictments.

Any stolen funds recovered by the county, Chaffee said, should go toward the residents previously represented by Andrew Do. Supervisor Janet Nguyen, who now represents the First Supervisorial District where Andrew Do used to serve, told LAist she also supports the idea of directing recovered COVID-relief funds to district residents. The district is in the northwestern region of the county and includes Cypress, Fountain Valley, Garden Grove, Huntington Beach and Westminster.

“The victims are the First District,” Nguyen said. “These individuals that I represent, the residents of the First District, are the ones who didn't get the benefits or the help from the county that they deserved.”

Accountability doesn’t end now with Andrew Do’s sentencing, Nguyen added, saying she hopes federal prosecutors will continue to "go after every individual and not let this go."

"We will hold everybody accountable,” she said.

A spokesperson for Supervisor Don Wagner said he was not available for comment.

Thai Viet Phan, a member of the Santa Ana City Council, said she thought Andrew Do’s crimes went well beyond bribery. “He literally stole money from poor people,” she said, referring to the meals for needy seniors that the contracts Andrew Do received kickbacks from were supposed to provide. “It’s just so cruel.”

Westminster resident Terry Rains showed up at the courthouse in Santa Ana to see the sentencing in person.

“I’m glad that we got the max allowed for this charge,” Rains said. "This is what journalism is all about … unrooting the corruption and then seeing the consequences of that.”

How much prison time did he and prosecutors ask for? 

Prosecutors asked Selna to impose the maximum sentence of five years, saying Andrew Do’s crimes were “an assault on the very legitimacy of government” and left vulnerable people with “empty stomachs and worsened health conditions.”

In calling for the maximum sentence, prosecutors also pointed to Andrew Do’s public attacks on LAist’s integrity — including a news release he issued in December 2023 falsely accusing an LAist reporter of forging documents and calling for the reporter to be fired.

“It was a calculated attempt to discredit those who sought to hold him accountable and to chill further investigation. Rather than confronting the truth, the defendant sought to delegitimize it,” prosecutors wrote.

“His actions sent a clear message: that the real threat, in his view, was not corruption or the misuse of public funds, but the exposure of those facts to the public.”

Ahead of Monday's hearing, Andrew Do asked the judge for a 33-month sentence — about half of what prosecutors called for. In a court filing, his attorney wrote that Andrew Do was “willfully blinded to the violations” and placed part of the blame on his fellow supervisors. He wrote that the money directed to Viet America Society was a decision made by all the members of the Orange County Board of Supervisors, not him alone.

An office suite in Huntington Beach for the nonprofit Viet America Society, shown in April 2024.

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County records show otherwise. Several million of the meal dollars were directed to the nonprofit at Andrew Do’s sole discretion, without the other supervisors ever voting on choosing that organization.

In calling for the lesser sentence, Andrew Do’s lawyers also wrote Andrew Do did not directly receive payments. And they wrote he has been volunteering with a youth program teaching youngsters how to foster confidence by learning how to sail.

Andrew Do’s lawyers wrote that he’s been spending 20 hours per week volunteering with the sailing program. A captain there told LAist Andrew Do has come in a few times per month.

California’s native scarlet monkeyflowers usually love water and moist areas. Their little red petals attract hummingbirds, making them popular for gardens. But during the state’s historic drought in the 2010s, they suffered.

“ It was really hard to watch these populations dwindle,” said Amy Angert, a professor at the University of British Columbia who’s been studying the wildflowers for nearly 30 years. “[It] was really heartbreaking.”

The plants were dying off, even fully disappearing in some places. They couldn’t survive in the extremely dry soil. But then something surprising happened. The wildflowers adapted.

A new study from researchers at Cornell University and the University of British Columbia has found that over a few years, some of the state’s scarlet monkeyflowers successfully, rapidly evolved to save themselves from climate change, likely the first fully recorded finding of such for plants.

The ground-breaking study

Plant adaptation can be compared to like jogging on a treadmill — and climate change is speeding that treadmill up really fast. Researchers have been concerned for years that plants might not be able to run fast enough to keep up, which could cause them to go extinct.

When the study started in 2010, the team set out to monitor monkeyflower populations over time to see how they waxed and waned in different conditions. They observed the plants in places like the San Bernardino mountains, Sequoia National Park, Kings Canyon and Yosemite.

Angert, who was the team leader and senior researcher, had no idea the drought would come two years later. But the heavy dry-spell created an opportunity: The team used a “time capsule” of old seeds to see how newer monkeyflowers were faring in the bone-dry soil. Some populations were luckier than others.

Through genome sequencing, researchers found that some genetic differences that appeared in plants in hot and dry places were occurring more often — even in spots where they weren’t that common before the drought.

It seemed some monkeyflowers were evolving themselves to have this adaptive trait, allowing them to not only survive the drought but also recover. This process has an official name: evolutionary rescue.

When it comes to the scarlet monkeyflowers’ physical traits, they aren’t sure what the genetic differences do. However, Angert says the populations that recovered the best were the ones that lost less water through the pores on their leaves — the stomata — while they were opening up for photosynthesis.

What this means for other plants

Angert was excited to see climate resilience in action, but cautions against taking this as a sign that we don’t need to worry about monkeyflowers or nature in general.

“Even in this species, it wasn’t all the populations that actually were resilient,” Angert added. “We saw three of them go to local extinction, and one of them hasn’t come back yet.”

It’s a hopeful tale — not a silver bullet. Still, the findings are significant. Angert says that, according to her knowledge, this is the first recorded finding of evolutionary rescue in the wild — a plant evolving to save itself and successfully doing so.

The million-dollar question is whether it can apply to other species. For now, the study suggests that if there are other species with the right set of genetic differences, they could also be resilient.

“ But of course, the challenge is figuring out which ones those are,” Angert said.

A federal judge in San Francisco said on Tuesday the government's ban on Anthropic looked like punishment after the AI company went public with its dispute with the Pentagon over the military's potential uses of its artificial intelligence model, Claude.

U.S. District Judge Rita F. Lin made the remark at the outset of a hearing about Anthropic's request for a preliminary injunction in one of its lawsuits against the Pentagon, which has designated the company a supply chain risk, effectively blacklisting it.

"It looks like an attempt to cripple Anthropic," Lin said, adding she was concerned that the government might be punishing Anthropic for openly criticizing the government's position.

Lin said she expected to make a ruling in the next few days on whether to temporarily pause the government's ban until the court decides on the merits of the case.

The hearing in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California is the latest development in a spat between one of the leading AI companies and the Trump administration, and it has implications for how the government can use AI more broadly.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei announced in late February that he would not allow the company's Claude's AI model to be used for autonomous weapons, or to surveil American citizens. President Trump subsequently ordered all U.S. government agencies to stop using Anthropic's products.

The Pentagon designated Anthropic as a "supply chain risk" earlier this month, citing national security concerns. That designation is normally reserved for entities deemed to be foreign adversaries that could potentially sabotage U.S. interests.

Anthropic has filed two federal lawsuits alleging that this designation amounts to illegal retaliation against the company for its stance on AI safety. It argues that the label will cost it both customers and revenue, since it will bar Pentagon contractors from doing business with the company, as well.

The lawsuits, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California and the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., allege the Trump administration violated the company's First Amendment right to speech and exceeded the scope of supply chain risk law.

In Tuesday's hearing, lawyers for Anthropic said it was apparently the first time such a designation had been made against a U.S. company.

Lin said the Pentagon has a right to decide what AI products it wants to use. But she questioned whether the government broke the law when it banned its agencies from using Anthropic, and when Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that anyone seeking business with the Pentagon must cut relations with Anthropic.

She said the actions were "troubling" because they did not seem to be tailored to the national security concerns in question, which could be addressed by the Pentagon simply ceasing to use Claude. Instead, she said, it looked like the government was trying to punish Anthropic.

But a lawyer for the government argued that its actions were not retaliatory, and were based on Anthropic's disagreement with the government over how its AI model could be used — not the company's decision to speak out about it.

The government also argued that Anthropic is a risk because, theoretically, in the future the company could update Claude in a way that endangers national security.

Anthropic did not respond immediately to an emailed request for comment.

A Pentagon spokesperson said that the agency's policy is not to comment on ongoing litigation.

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An oil pipeline that was shut down after a 2015 environmental disaster is flowing again after President Donald Trump issued an executive order earlier this month.

California mounted a legal fight against the pipeline this week. But environmentalists have won court rulings against the pipeline in recent years too.

Before state Attorney General Rob Bonta filed his suit, the Environmental Defense Center, a nonprofit focused on Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties, was already involved in its own ongoing lawsuit to keep the pipeline system shutdown. Last year, a judge granted the group a preliminary injunction to keep the pipeline closed.

“ It's a really dangerous project," said Linda Krop, chief counsel for the Environmental Defense Center. “It would not only cause harm to the environment, but it also threatens public health and safety and our local economy.”

The backstory

The pipeline runs through Gaviota State Park, known for its natural beauty and coastal biodiversity.

The 2015 Refugio Oil Spill released more than 123,000 gallons of crude into the waters off Santa Barbara’s Gaviota Coast, killing hundreds of birds and other wildlife, and spreading more than a hundred miles south into Los Angeles.

The Santa Ynez offshore oil platform and Las Flores Pipeline System responsible for the spill (then operated by Exxon) were shuttered — until the federal government ordered it to restart earlier this month, citing emergency powers and an energy crisis caused by the war in Iran.

Who gets to decide?

California regulators previously ruled that the company now operating the pipeline, Sable Offshore Corp., based in Houston, had to repair the pipeline system before operations could resume.

Krop said the federal government agreed in 2016 that the California fire marshal would have jurisdiction over the pipeline’s safety. And in 2020, she said, a court ruled that only the state could approve restarting the system — an agreement the federal government signed.

“It's not proper for the Trump administration or the secretary of energy to override a court order,” Krop said.

Now, the legal battle will be over who is in charge: the California fire marshal or the Department of Energy as ordered by Trump?

The Department of Energy did not respond to LAist’s request for comment.

Krop told LAist that Californians should be concerned from both an environmental and a constitutional perspective.

 “This is not just about Sable. This is about a constitutional crisis,” Krop said. “This is going to be the new precedent. … If they care about the ability of states to enforce their own laws, if they're worried about State Parks saying what can happen within their boundaries, then they should care about this.”

Is an energy crisis the real reason?

In a statement, Sable said the the federal intervention was “to address the energy scarcity and supply disruption risks caused by California policies that have left the region and U.S. military forces dependent on foreign oil.”

The U.S. is a net exporter of oil, though the global oil market’s complexity means that what is produced here doesn’t necessarily stay in the U.S.

Krop took issue with the characterization of an energy crisis to begin with, a sentiment shared by Bonta and other Democratic leaders in California.

Krop also challenged the assertion that restarting the pipeline would help lower gas prices.

“Gas prices are set on a global market, and right now they're influenced by what's happening in Iran and the war. This project will not make a bit of difference with gas prices,” Krop said. “People don't realize probably oil from this project, it's very heavy, low quality crude oil. There's not any guarantee that it's going to even make it to the gas pump.”

SANTA FE, N.M. — A New Mexico jury decided Tuesday that Meta knowingly harmed children's mental health and concealed what it knew about child sexual exploitation on its social media platforms, a verdict that signals a changing tide against tech companies and the government's willingness to crack down.

The landmark decision comes after a nearly seven-week trial, and as jurors in a federal court in California have been sequestered in deliberations for more than a week about whether Meta and YouTube should be liable in a similar case.

New Mexico jurors sided with state prosecutors who argued that Meta — which owns Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp — prioritized profits over safety. The jury determined Meta violated parts of the state's Unfair Practices Act on accusations the company hid what it knew about about the dangers of child sexual exploitation on its platforms and impacts on child mental health.

The jury agreed with allegations that Meta made false or misleading statements and also agreed that Meta engaged in "unconscionable" trade practices that unfairly took advantage of the vulnerabilities of and inexperience of children.

How much does Meta owe

Jurors found there were thousands of violations, each counting separately toward a penalty of $375 million. That's less than one-fifth of what prosecutors were seeking.

Meta is valued at about $1.5 trillion. The company's stock was up 5% in early after-hours trading following the verdict, a signal that shareholders were shrugging off the news and its potential impact on the company's business.

The social media conglomerate won't be forced to change its practices right away. It will be up to a judge — not a jury — to determine whether Meta's social media platforms created a public nuisance and whether the company should pay for public programs to address the harms. That second phase of the trial will happen in May.

A Meta spokesperson said the company disagrees with the verdict and will appeal.

"We work hard to keep people safe on our platforms and are clear about the challenges of identifying and removing bad actors or harmful content," the spokesperson said. "We will continue to defend ourselves vigorously, and we remain confident in our record of protecting teens online."

Attorneys for Meta said the company discloses risks and makes efforts to weed out harmful content and experiences, while acknowledging that some bad material gets through its safety net.

Other lawsuits against Meta over children's mental health

New Mexico's case was among the first to reach trial in a wave of litigation involving social media platforms and their impacts on children.

The trial that started Feb. 9. is one of the first in a torrent of lawsuits against Meta and comes as school districts and legislators want more restrictions on the use of smartphones in classrooms.

More than 40 state attorneys general have filed lawsuits against Meta, claiming it's contributing to a mental health crisis among young people by deliberately designing Instagram and Facebook features that are addictive.

"Meta's house of cards is beginning to fall," said Sacha Haworth, executive director of watchdog group The Tech Oversight Project. "For years, it's been glaringly obvious that Meta has failed to stop sexual predators from turning online interactions into real world harm."

Haworth pointed to whistleblowers like Arturo Bejar, as well as unsealed documents and other evidence, saying it painted a damning picture.

New Mexico's case relied on a state undercover investigation where agents created social media accounts posing as children to document sexual solicitations and Meta's response.

The lawsuit, filed in 2023 by New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez, also says Meta hasn't fully disclosed or addressed the dangers of social media addiction. Meta hasn't agreed that social media addiction exists, but executives at trial acknowledged "problematic use" and say they want people to feel good about the time they spend on Meta's platforms.

"Evidence shows not only that Meta invests in safety because it's the right thing to do but because it is good for business," Meta attorney Kevin Huff told jurors in closing arguments. "Meta designs its apps to help people connect with friends and family, not to try to connect predators."

Tech companies have been protected from liability for material posted on their social media platforms under Section 230, a 30-year-old provision of the U.S. Communications Decency Act, as well as a First Amendment shield.

New Mexico prosecutors say Meta still should be responsible for its role in pushing out that content through complex algorithms that proliferate material that can be harmful for children.

"We know the output is meant to be engagement and time spent for kids," prosecution attorney Linda Singer said. "That choice that Meta made has profound negative impacts on kids."

What the New Mexico jury reviewed

The New Mexico trial examined a raft of Meta's internal correspondence and reports related to child safety. Jurors also heard testimony from Meta executives, platform engineers, whistleblowers who left the company, psychiatric experts and tech-safety consultants.

The jury also heard testimony from local public school educators who struggled with disruptions linked to social media, including sextortion schemes targeting children.

In reaching a verdict, the jury considered whether social media users were misled by specific statements about platform safety by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Instagram head Adam Mosseri and Meta global head of safety Antigone Davis.

In deliberations, the jury used a checklist of allegations from prosecutors that Meta failed to disclose what it knew about problems with enforcing its ban on users under 13, the prevalence of social media content about teen suicide, the role of Meta algorithms in prioritizing sensational or harmful content, and more.

Juror Linda Payton, 38, said the jury reached a compromise on the estimated number of teenagers affected by Meta's platforms, while opting for the maximum penalty per violation. With a maximum $5,000 penalty for each violation, she said she thought each child was worth the maximum amount.

ParentsSOS, a coalition of families who have lost children to harm caused by social media, called the verdict a "watershed moment."

"We parents who have experienced the unimaginable — the death of a child because of social media harms — applaud this rare and momentous milestone in the years-long fight to hold Big Tech accountable for the dangers their products pose to our kids," the group said in a statement.
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