Days before FBI search, OC supervisor defended his daughter’s nonprofit against fraud claims

Orange County Supervisor Andrew Do, the central figure in an unfolding corruption scandal that saw his home searched by FBI and IRS agents last week, has for months declined to comment to English-language news outlets.

Last week, he spoke out on Vietnamese-language radio, according to a recording of the remarks that LAist had translated. The broadcast took place a few hours after LAist broke the news on Aug. 15 that county officials filed a fraud lawsuit against his daughter, Rhiannon Do, and others involved in a nonprofit she helped lead, according to two people who said they spoke with others who heard the broadcast live.

Supervisor Do directed more than $10 million in public funds to the nonprofit, Viet America Society (VAS), that have gone unaccounted for, despite O.C. officials’ repeated demands for answers about what happened to the money since February .

LAist reached out to Supervisor Do on Friday and Saturday and did not get a response. A county spokesperson declined to comment on the broadcast.

Supervisor Do has declined or not responded to dozens of LAist’s requests for comment since LAist first reported on millions in public funds he’d directed Viet America Society outside of public view.

The Aug. 15 broadcast on VietLink Radio is Supervisor Do’s first — and so far only — known public response to the controversy since the county filed suit alleging that millions of taxpayer dollars were misspent. It is being reported here in English for the first time.

VietLink Radio is owned by Supervisor Do’s former deputy chief of staff Nick Lecong, and broadcasts a few hours per week on 1480 AM from a transmitter in Santa Ana.

Supervisor Do calls recent allegations ‘a slander’

Supervisor Do spoke for 17 minutes on the VietLink Radio segment. He criticized fellow O.C. Republican Janet Nguyen, a state senator currently running for Do's seat, the media and others for what he called slander against his “whole family.” Supervisor Do also defended the Viet America Society, and Peter Pham, the nonprofit group’s founder, from allegations they misused millions of dollars meant to feed vulnerable seniors. He spoke on his own and was not interviewed.

During his broadcast, Supervisor Do pointed to a financial review that he described as showing Viet America Society “is complying with the law,” according to the translation. He appeared to be referring to a financial review released last week by VAS’ new attorney, Mark Rosen.

Allegations that laws were broken are “just a wrongful accusation, a slander,” Supervisor Do added.

The number of people who have received meals from the group “is very high,” he said, adding that 400,000 meals have been served. Supervisor Do said that number was provided by Rosen.

Rosen first emerged publicly as VAS’ lawyer in an Aug. 12 letter to the county. VAS’ previous attorney, Sterling Scott Winchell, told the Orange County Register he no longer represented the group as of Aug. 13.

County officials recently issued findings that Viet America Society's meal numbers were “questionable” and that the nonprofit failed to prove it served the number of meals required in county contracts. It filed a lawsuit in Orange County Superior Court on Aug. 15 — a few hours before Supervisor Do’s radio segment that night — based in large part on those findings. The case has been transferred to San Diego County Superior Court.

In his broadcast, Supervisor Do said that many people were helped by VAS.

“People came to Phước Lộc Thọ to eat every day, to be helped by Peter Pham's Society,” Supervisor Do said about VAS. Phước Lộc Thọ is the Vietnamese name for the Asian Garden Mall, where Pham’s restaurant Perfume River is located.

An LAist review of VAS’ internal financial ledgers provided to the county and obtained by a public records request, found that VAS paid $1.7 million to Perfume River, the majority of money it received from the county to provide meals to needy seniors in 2021 and 2022.

The payments to Perfume River are labeled as “Food Supplies,” with no further information.

In early April, LAist sent questions to the county and to Viet America Society leaders about those large-scale transfers of funds from the nonprofit to the restaurant. Neither entity has provided answers. A county spokesperson told LAist that the county has not received any details or invoices it has requested from VAS about the restaurant payments.

County officials now say it’s unclear what happened to the taxpayer money that was forwarded to the restaurant. They issued findings, cited in their lawsuit against VAS , that the nonprofit has refused to provide the county with an explanation or documentation about what the funds were used for.

The FBI searched the restaurant Thursday, as well as other locations tied to VAS.

More from VietLink segment

In his Aug. 15 broadcast on VietLink Radio, Supervisor Do said he and his family are victims of a smear campaign by the media and Janet Nguyen, the state senator and a former longtime ally turned political foe. Nguyen, a Republican, had mentored Supervisor Do, a fellow Republican. He served as her chief of staff when she was a county supervisor before they had a bitter falling out. She is currently a candidate to replace him as supervisor in the Nov. 5 election. (Do was termed out of office.)

Supervisor Do also said during the broadcast that slander from the media and “factions that follow” Nguyen are why his wife Cheri Pham — the number two judge in Orange County Superior Court — recently decided not to seek the top judgeship.

“They kept insinuating that there is something dark, something that discredits us and our families, not only is related to us but even with my wife. It slanders our whole family and therefore my wife no longer wants to be the…chief justice of Orange County,” Supervisor Do said on the broadcast.

“Our community has lost an opportunity [for] the first time in the history of the United States since the Vietnamese were refugees, a Chief Justice of such ability, prestige and dignity as my wife has to turn down that position because of a completely unacceptable manner of conduct in our community.”

Through a court spokesperson, Cheri Pham declined to comment on her husband’s description of why she decided not to seek the presiding judge position.

She is currently the assistant presiding judge for a two-year period ending in December. Typically, people in that position run for presiding judge for the next term and win the election among the court’s judges, according to an LAist review of court announcements for the last 14 years.

But Cheri Pham announced to the other judges last month that she had decided not to seek the top seat. She did not give a reason in her announcement, but said it was “not an easy decision” and came “after careful consideration.”

Supervisor Do alleges defamation

In the Aug. 15 radio broadcast, Supervisor Do also said he believes there are people who want to make sure he doesn’t try for elective office again.

“They want to make sure that they have to defame Andrew Do so that he can’t become a candidate who they must fear in the future,” Do said in his broadcast.

Asked for her response, Nguyen, the state senator, said Do has only himself to blame for his troubles. She also reiterated calls she has made for him to resign.

“This is classic Andrew Do, lying to the Vietnamese community in their own language to create divide. Meanwhile, he has been completely silent to the rest of our community,” Nguyen wrote in a statement.

“The reality is that Andrew is solely responsible for ruining his wife’s, Judge Cheri [Pham’s], career. Andrew is solely responsible for his daughter’s [alleged] fraudulent activities. Most importantly, he single-handedly stripped resources for our most vulnerable communities to benefit himself,” she added.

“It’s time he looks in the mirror and takes accountability for his actions.”

Nguyen is running against Frances Marquez, a city council member in Cypress and Democrat for Orange County’s first supervisorial district.

Marquez called for Supervisor Do to resign in a statement to LAist on Saturday.

“Anyone who violates the principles of ethics and betrays the public trust is not fit for holding office,” she wrote. “He had a duty to be honest and transparent with the residents of District 1 and failed us.”

Earlier this year, Supervisor Do endorsed his then co-chief of staff, Van Tran, for his seat, but Tran placed third in the March primary and did not make it to the runoff.

As a two-term supervisor, Do, himself, cannot run for supervisor again.

About the county’s lawsuit

The county’s lawsuit, which followed months of investigative articles from LAist on Supervisor Do’s funding of VAS , alleges his daughter and other leaders of the nonprofit “brazenly plundered” up to $10.4 million Supervisor Do had given them between early 2021 and fall 2023 to build a Vietnam War memorial and feed seniors and people with disabilities during the pandemic.

The lawsuit claims Rhiannon Do and her associates at the nonprofit refused to show how they spent those millions of dollars in public funds, which the county received from the federal government to help respond to the public’s needs during the coronavirus pandemic.

The county’s lawsuit accuses them of spending part of the money to buy million-dollar properties for themselves — but does not cite proof. Three of the six properties cited in the county’s lawsuit were among those that federal agents searched this week.

Rosen, the lawyer for VAS, has disputed the county’s allegations, saying the lawsuit is riddled with errors, “a disgrace” and a “hatchet job.”

On Thursday, a little less than a week after the radio broadcast, Supervisor Do and Cheri Pham’s house was searched by the FBI. Federal officials also searched a house purchased by Rhiannon Do; another purchased by Peter Pham, who is often listed in public records as the chief executive of VAS; other properties owned by people connected to VAS; and the Perfume River restaurant.

Rhiannon Do and Peter Pham deny wrongdoing

Rhiannon Do and Peter Pham have denied doing anything wrong.

In an April email replying to LAist’s inquiries about the county’s payments to VAS, Rhiannon Do said there was nothing improper about how Viet America Society’s funding was used.

The “insinuation that there was something untoward with the use of VAS funds is fabricated” and a “false narrative,” she wrote. A lawyer who said he’s representing Rhiannon Do told LAist on Friday that she’s a "very honest, law-abiding, hardworking young woman."

Following the federal search on his house, Peter Pham told the Los Angeles Times that the situation was a "misunderstanding" and that he "didn't do anything wrong."

About VietLink Radio

Nick Lecong, VietLink Radio’s owner, worked for Supervisor Do as his deputy chief of staff from February 2015 to September 2017.

He was then hired as a translation contractor for Do’s county office through his company T&T Consulting, and was paid $72,000 per year for several years through contracts that did not go through a competitive bidding process.

According to county records, VietLink Radio directly received $89,000 in county funds for public service announcements during the pandemic, plus an unknown portion of $150,000 the county paid vendors that have close ties to VAS leaders.

That money made its way to ads on VietLink through private firms associated with VAS leaders Peter Pham, Le Dan Hua, Dinh Mai, and a woman who has lived at the same address as Peter Pham — Thu Thao Thi Vu — according to county invoice records obtained by LAist.

In the second half of 2020, the county paid $75,000 each to Aloha Financial Investment and Hua Development — two companies that have shared leaders with VAS — to fund COVID-19 public service ads on broadcast outlets that included “Vietlink Radio and Vietlink Television,” according to the invoices.

Aloha Financial Investment described itself as an “investments” business in a state filing last year. Hua Development is Peter Pham and Hua’s building contractor business.

The ad payments were in addition to $60,000 the county directly paid VietLink Radio during the same period — also for pandemic public service ads, according to a county contract obtained by LAist. Those ads were supposed to run in newspapers, according to the contract.

County spokesperson Molly Nichelson, who is listed in county records as requesting the Aloha Financial Investment and Hua Development purchase orders, said Friday she was looking into LAist’s questions about the ad payments.

Lecong's ties to earlier investigation of Supervisor Do

Lecong was mentioned in a previous investigation of Supervisor Do by the state Fair Political Practices Commission. That investigation found that Supervisor Do and Lecong used a different nonprofit as a “holding company” to pay for construction of statues of war heroes and former President Ronald Reagan at Mile Square Regional Park in Fountain Valley in 2015 and 2016.

State investigators concluded that he and Lecong controlled that foundation even though they were not its named leaders.

They issued findings that Supervisor Do had falsely told them under penalty of perjury that he had not asked anyone to donate to the foundation, when he had.

The foundation used donated funds, raised by Supervisor Do, to pay two men who would later become involved with VAS. The two men — VAS founder Peter Pham and Hua, his partner in a general contracting business — were described by the Orange County Register at the time as project managers for the statues’ construction, and were paid $20,800.

Peter Pham went on to found VAS in June 2020, days after Supervisor Do and other county supervisors voted to create the pandemic meals program . Hua — Peter Pham’s business partner — has served as VAS’ president on and off since its founding, according to tax filings and other government documents. Rhiannon Do also has appeared on contracts and other government filings, variously as the group’s president, vice president, executive director, officer and director.

She told LAist, via email in April, that she never served in those roles. Rhiannon Do never responded to follow-up questions about why her name appears in at least nine public titles in top leadership roles at the nonprofit.

Catch up on LAist's investigation

In November 2023, LAist began investigating how millions in public taxpayer dollars were spent. In total, LAist has uncovered over $13 million in public money was approved to a little-known nonprofit that records state was led on and off by Rhiannon Do, the now 23-year-old daughter of Supervisor Do. Most of that money was directed to the group by Supervisor Do outside of the public’s view and never appeared on public meeting agendas. He did not publicly disclose his family ties.

Much of the known funding came from federal coronavirus relief money.

• Read the story that launched the investigation here.
• Since we started reporting, we’ve also uncovered the group was two years overdue in completing a required audit into whether the meal funds were spent appropriately.
• And we found the amount of taxpayer money directed to the nonprofit was much larger than initially known . It totals at least $13.5 million in county funding — tallied from government records obtained and published by LAist.
• After our reporting, O.C. officials wrote demand letters to the nonprofit saying millions in funding were unaccounted for. They warned it could be forced to repay the funds.
• And, we found the nonprofit missed a deadline set by county officials to provide proof about how funding for meals were spent.
• On Aug. 2, LAist reported O.C. officials were demanding the refund of more than $3 million in public funds awarded by Do to VAS and another nonprofit, Hand to Hand.
• Six days later, LAist reported Orange County officials had expanded demands for refund s of millions in tax dollars from the nonprofits and threatened legal action.
• On Aug. 15, LAist reported O.C. officials sued VAS and its key officers and associated businesses, including Rhiannon Do . The lawsuit alleges that county money was illegally used to purchase five homes and was converted into cash through ATM transactions.
• Then, on Aug. 19, LAist reported O.C. officials had announced a second lawsuit against Hand to Hand and its CEO to recover millions of taxpayer dollars that were directed by Supervisor Do.
• LAist broke the news on Aug. 22 that federal agents were searching Rhiannon Do's home in Tustin. Later that day, Supervisor Do's home, and other properties, were also raided.

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