Ex-OC supervisor Andrew Do sentenced to 5 years in prison over corruption scheme

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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Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

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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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Brian Feinzimer

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LAist

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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.