Deadline extended for nonprofit with ties to OC supervisor to account for millions in taxpayer funds

The Viet America Society, a nonprofit with ties to O.C. Supervisor Andrew Do and his 22-year-old daughter, will have two more weeks to show what it did with millions of taxpayer dollars, Supervisor Katrina Foley confirmed to LAist.

Sterling Scott Winchell, an attorney now representing the nonprofit, said in an interview published Thursday with The Orange County Register that Viet America Society will be able to prove how it spent $4 million earmarked for meals during the pandemic.

The county has been seeking transaction records for more than a year, according to warning letters from the county’s OC Community Resource department. A pair of deadlines, on March 14 and March 18, came and went earlier this month without the nonprofit providing transaction records and other details as required by the county, according to county spokespeople.

Supervisor Foley said she wants to see proof of where the money went, and that any normal operation should have a bookkeeping program with receipts and invoices.

“I just don’t know why that’s so hard,” she said.

Supervisor Do and the three other supervisors didn’t immediately return LAist’s messages for comment.

On Thursday, the nonprofit’s Huntington Beach office had a sign on its door from the building owner saying the suite was available for lease.

The Viet America Society's Huntington Beach office with a sign on its door saying the suite was available for lease on Thursday, March 28, 2024.

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Nick Gerda

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LAist

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Attorney says Rhiannon Do is no longer involved in nonprofit

Winchell told the Register that Supervisor Do’s daughter Rhiannon Do is no longer involved with the organization. “She has a real life ahead of her,” he said. “So she just basically left the place.”

He also claimed that Rhiannon Do was never in a leadership position, despite her being listed as the group’s president or executive director on state and county records since at least February 2022.

Rhiannon Do also was marked as the group’s only director and only officer on its most recent public tax filing, covering calendar year 2022.

Winchell did not respond to LAist’s request for comment.

He told the Register he couldn’t explain why she signed documents as an officer.

“She must not have been looking at it,” he said in the interview. “She never was president. She never was vice president. She never was an officer, director, managing agent.”

Winchell also told the Register that the tax filings have been refiled without her name.

Rhiannon Do also signed a subcontract as the nonprofit’s president in June 2023, according to public records obtained by LAist. She listed herself as president of Warner Wellness, the DBA for Viet America, from July 2021 on LinkedIn. [A DBA is a name an organization uses to operate that’s different from its legal name.] Her page has since been removed from public view.

As LAist reported in November:

As recently as October, Rhiannon Do is listed as one of the people "confirmed as officers" for the organization in a document turned over by OC County as part of a public records request.

What’s next

Winchell said the nonprofit now is looking to do a required audit, which is nearly two years overdue and is required under the nonprofit's county contract and federal law.

Viet America Society has been the subject of a months-long LAist investigation that has uncovered more than $13 million in taxpayer funds that Supervisor Do directed, or helped direct, to his daughter’s group without publicly disclosing his family connection.

Under state law, officials are not required to disclose or recuse themselves when their votes would financially benefit their adult children. The law does require those disclosures for minor children and spouses. An effort earlier this year by some O.C. supervisors to change ethics requirements in the county failed to advance.

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LAist reporter Ted Rohrlich contributed to this report.