Prosecutors this week called for the maximum sentence of five years for disgraced former Orange County Supervisor Andrew Do. He is scheduled to be sentenced on June 9 after pleading guilty to a federal bribery charge for his role in a scheme to steal millions meant to feed needy seniors.
Do also filed his own court documents this week in which he defended and downplayed his actions — casting part of the blame on his fellow supervisors.
The dueling court documents come as prosecutors asked the judge for the longest sentence possible under the plea agreement, describing Do’s crimes as “an assault on the very legitimacy of government.”
“To fail to impose serious consequences is to signal that self-dealing by the powerful is a tolerable feature of government," prosecutors wrote in the pre-sentencing document. "A substantial sentence, by contrast, acts as a form of institutional self-defense, reaffirming that public office is a trust, not a tool for exploitation.”
Here are the main takeaways from the prosecutors' filing:
Do’s actions hurt "the most exposed residents of the County"
Prosecutors say Do’s scheme to line his pockets with taxpayer dollars meant to feed needy seniors at the Viet America Society, a nonprofit with ties to his daughter, left people with “empty stomachs and worsened health conditions.”
It also misled taxpayers: Because Do was touting the success of the program even as he was stealing from it, everyone was “unaware that these people had been abandoned.”
And prosecutors say Do — a lawyer and former prosecutor himself — would have been well aware that he was committing a crime.
“His actions were not borne of ignorance or confusion, they were deliberate violations of the very laws he once enforced,” prosecutors wrote.
Do orchestrated a "strategic" scheme "to muddy the trail of funds"
Do benefited through a “strategic” scheme where Viet America Society’s leaders were funneling money back to him through his daughters, prosecutors wrote.
“It was not a spur-of-the-moment lapse of judgment, but a sustained effort to evade scrutiny through manipulation of personal relationships and familial trust,” the court documents state.
Do’s willingness to drag his two daughters into the scheme, prosecutors add, also demonstrates a “deeper level of moral indifference.”
This is not Do’s first time violating the public’s trust
Even though Do had not been criminally convicted before, prosecutors say he has violated the public’s trust in the past. The California Fair Political Practices Commission once fined the former supervisor $12,000 for using his role on the CalOptima board to influence contract decisions.
The “administrative penalty,” prosecutors wrote, “emboldened” Do instead of deterring him.
When the media first started reporting on possible crimes, Do attacked the press
When LAist reporter Nick Gerda first began uncovering the lack of transparency in Do awarding millions to his daughter’s nonprofit, the former supervisor sent out a news release on county letterhead calling on LAist to fire the reporter. Prosecutors said Do’s actions were “retaliatory.”
“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,” they 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.”
Do’s attacks on the media — he also called an Orange County Register editorial calling for his resignation "a political hit piece" — are “aggravating” factors for the judge to consider at sentencing, the prosecutors wrote.
The victims of Do’s actions were his own community members
Do was once the darling of Southern California’s Vietnamese community. In him, the community saw their own story — the one where refugees fleeing the fall of their city would realize the American Dream.
These are the very people Do’s actions affected, prosecutors wrote.
“His childhood experiences with poverty should have taught him the pain that comes from a hungry stomach in times of crisis, and his experiences as a refugee should have made him realize the stress endured by those without a job or financial support” — the very people who could have benefitted from the stolen tax dollars, they wrote.
Do's response
In Do's response, also filed with the court, he defended and downplayed his actions. He said he was “willfully blinded to the violations” and laid part of the blame on his fellow supervisors.
He said the money directed to the Viet America Society was a decision made by all the members of the Orange County Board of Supervisors, not him alone. And he said he did not directly receive payments.
“There was no explicit agreement between Andrew Do and [Viet America Society] or anyone associated with [Viet America Society],” his lawyers wrote.
Since pleading guilty and resigning from the Board of Supervisors, Do’s lawyers wrote, he has been volunteering with a youth program teaching youngsters how to foster confidence by learning how to sail.
The court records: Read them for yourself
What the prosecution had to say
What the defense had to say
Statement by Los Angeles Maritime Institute Brian Heyman, on Andrew Do's behalf
Andrew Do's letter to the judge
