A key figure in the Andrew Do scandal just finished law school. Will she be admitted to the bar?

In the wake of the Andrew Do corruption scandal, we’ve heard from Orange County residents wondering if his younger daughter, who recently received a law degree from UC Irvine School of Law, will be approved to become an attorney.

They’ve asked because Rhiannon Do, now 24, admitted to violating criminal laws — including perjury and mortgage fraud — connected to a taxpayer-funded scheme that led to her father’s federal prison sentence for his actions while a powerful O.C. supervisor. To become a practicing attorney in California, she would have to pass the bar exam, as well as a State Bar review of whether she has “good moral character.”

The first opportunity for her to take the bar exam after graduating law school is later this month. The list of people who pass this month’s test is scheduled to be publicly posted on Nov. 9.

Financial dishonesty is one of the top areas the state bar looks closely at in their review of applicants, said Mario Mainero, an associate dean at Chapman University law school and expert on the bar application process.

Speaking generally, Mainero said any applicant with a history of serious financial dishonesty will face a longer review process before the bar decides whether to clear them to become an attorney. The reason is that attorneys are often entrusted with handling money for their clients and dividing it up appropriately between fees and what the client should get.

“Any history of dishonesty is going to be an issue for the state bar,” said Mainero, who has been helping students prepare for the bar process for two decades and leads those efforts at Chapman.

Rather than being cleared at the initial stage — a review by a state bar investigator — the more serious cases often go to a process where the applicant is interviewed, and potentially a hearing, he said.

“The State Bar of California is not a social group, it is a consumer protection agency. And so its job is to ferret out, or gatekeep” risks for clients who hire attorneys, said Mainero, who also served until 2010 as chief of staff to then-OC Supervisor John Moorlach.

It’s not a black-and-white decision, according to the State Bar. No crime in and of itself disqualifies someone from becoming an attorney, the bar says.

Rhiannon Do’s attorney, Dave Wiechert, declined to comment when asked if he or Rhiannon Do had anything to say for this story.

What’s the backstory?

Rhiannon Do’s home purchase, and more than $200,000 in payments to her, featured prominently last fall in her father’s plea deal in which he admitted that the down payment and money to Rhiannon Do was a bribe to him for millions in tax dollars he steered to the nonprofit Viet America Society to feed needy seniors. Nearly $8 million of the meal money was diverted, Andrew Do admitted.

The $1.035-million home in unincorporated Tustin was purchased by Rhiannon Do in summer 2023, when she was 22 years old and a full-time law student.

At the time, she was also working at Viet America Society, which had started up in the early days of the pandemic. The group ultimately received more than $10 million in taxpayer dollars at the direction of her father, Andrew Do. Most of that money was COVID-19 relief funds meant to feed needy seniors, and millions of it was routed to a company called Aloha Financial Investment.

Last spring, as LAist investigated what happened to millions that the group was failing to account for, we asked Rhiannon Do questions about the purchase of her home — including why Aloha’s president was named in the purchase paperwork. Rhiannon Do was working as an intern for the Orange County District Attorney’s Office when LAist reached out.

She wrote back calling the questions part of a “false narrative.”

“Your insinuation that there was something untoward with the use of VAS funds is fabricated to further your false narrative from the beginning,” she added, referring to Viet America Society.

Rhiannon Do told us a few days later via email that she didn’t know why Aloha’s president was mentioned on the deed, and that the company president had referred her to the home after deciding not to buy it.

“I have worked hard to purchase my house,” she wrote.

[Click here to read LAist’s email exchange with Rhiannon Do about the home purchase.]

Records later obtained by LAist showed there was much more to the story. Down payment money for the house came from Aloha, according to an escrow receipt LAist obtained of a wire transfer. And Aloha’s president originally was a co-buyer of the home with Rhiannon Do, according to the original purchase agreement.

Part of an escrow receipt for $350,000 towards the downpayment on Rhiannon Do’s home purchase, later filed in court by prosecutors. Millions of the meal dollars Andrew Do awarded the nonprofit Viet America Society had been routed to Aloha, according to public records and Andrew Do's plea deal.

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U.S. Attorney's Office filing in federal court

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What did she and her father admit to?

Last October, following a criminal probe sparked by LAist’s investigation, Andrew Do admitted the home purchase — plus $224,000 in payments to Rhiannon Do — were bribes to him, through his daughter, as part of a scheme to divert millions of dollars in money he had awarded to feed needy seniors.

“As part of the implied agreement, VAS and Co-Conspirator#1 knew they had to pay money for the contracts. This money was done in the form of payments to defendant’s daughters,” Andrew Do’s plea deal states.

Rhiannon Do also signed as Viet America Society’s president on two mental health services subcontracts her father had voted to authorize, according to public records and her father’s plea deal.

Rhiannon Do admitted to violating four criminal laws around the purchase, including mortgage fraud and perjury. The deal she made with prosecutors avoided criminal charges but included requirements that she continue attending school and study for the state bar exam to become an attorney, or to work or seek work.

The mortgage application for Rhiannon Do’s house “was obtained by a mortgage application containing false information and with fabricated documents,” her father’s plea deal states.

Rhiannon Do’s deal says she signed a final loan application that contained false statements from “third parties” intended to influence the lender, without reviewing the application “in willful blindness” of whether the statements were true or false.

Andrew Do, who served on the O.C. board of supervisors for almost a decade, was recently sentenced to five years in federal prison. He must turn himself in to the low-security Lompoc federal prison in Santa Barbara County by Aug. 15. Earlier this month, federal agents seized custody of the home Rhiannon Do purchased, which she and her father forfeited any ownership of as part of their deals. Meanwhile, the county has an ongoing fraud lawsuit against Rhiannon Do, Andrew Do and others.

What would Rhiannon Do need to do to become an attorney?

Rhiannon Do went on to graduate from UC Irvine’s law school in May, according to a university spokesperson.

To become a practicing attorney in California, she would have to pass the bar exam as well as a State Bar review of whether she has “good moral character.”

As part of that review, applicants are required to disclose to the State Bar any lawsuits against them, as well as any complaints that they engaged in fraud, deceit or misrepresentation.

What factors does the bar look at if a candidate engaged in misconduct?

Here’s what the review looks at, and what Rhiannon Do admitted to.

According to the state bar’s guidelines, a review looks holistically at the circumstances, including the applicant’s age at the time of any fraud misconduct, their role, how often they engaged in misconduct and their level of remorse and accountability.

When it comes to past fraud by an applicant, the bar’s guidelines say there are a variety of factors they consider, which could work for or against an applicant, including:

• Length of time since misconduct
• Severity of the misconduct
• Number and frequency of acts of misconduct
• Role of the applicant
• Age of the applicant at the time of misconduct
• Time since the misconduct
• Their intent
• Their remorse, insight and accountability
• Payment of fines, restitution, other financial obligations
• Rehabilitation related to misconduct
• Pattern of misconduct
• Attempts to conceal or mislead
• Financial or emotional impact on victims
• Misconduct involving abuse of authority
• Number and type of victims