San Jose businessman says he didn’t defame embattled CEO

A feud is heating up between two businessmen with big reputations in San Jose’s Little Saigon, including David Duong — the subject of an FBI probe involving Oakland’s mayor.

Duong, CEO of trash and recycling hauler Cal Waste Solutions, has hurled a defamation lawsuit against Hai Huynh, a bail bonds businessman described by some in the city’s Vietnamese community — Duong included — as being a “Godfather” type gangster. Huynh rejects the characterization, and so did a county judge this week. Duong’s April complaint accuses Huynh of publicly smearing him as a Vietnamese government henchman.

A main focus of Duong’s lawsuit is a March 7 email from Huynh, in which Duong’s complaint accuses Huynh of “falsely claiming that Mr. Duong is a ‘communist lackey’ and is pro-communist.” The lawsuit said recipients of the email included San Jose and Santa Clara County government employees, Vietnamese American business owners and politicians and community activists. The email eventually found its way to Doung.

“These statements are untrue and slanderous,” Duong’s complaint reads. “Indeed, in the Vietnamese-American community, accusations that a person is pro-communist, a spy for the communist government, a communist lackey, a defender of Vietnamese human rights violations and similar charges subject that person to ostracization and even death threats.”

Huynh told San José Spotlight he didn’t start the email thread — he only replied to it.

“This lawsuit is wrong and bogus,” Huynh told San José Spotlight.

Decadeslong relationship

The two men have known each other for decades. While Huynh was apparently key to raising Duong’s profile in San Jose, that relationship has since soured.

The dispute started, Duong alleges, when Duong didn’t pay Huynh for using his connections in the Vietnamese community to rally support for Duong as he first sought out a recycling contract in San Jose in the 1990s. The city approved the first Cal Waste Solutions contract in 2007 for $15 million annually through 2010. The company’s current contract with the city runs through 2036.

Huynh’s attorneys this month posited another cause for the bad blood: Duong chairs the Vietnamese American Business Association, a group that some in the community view as sympathetic to the Vietnamese government. Huynh, who lived for six years under communist rule before coming to the U.S. in 1981, is among the business association’s harshest critics.

The Vietnamese American Business Association co-sponsored a 2023 trip to Vietnam — where Duong also operates a waste management facility — for Oakland city officials, including Mayor Sheng Thao. The FBI raided Thao’s home last month, apparently in the same probe focusing on Duong’s company and family members.

Huynh said Duong is trying to silence his public criticism, which often appears on Facebook.

Duong said he simply wants Huynh to prove his public charges — and to publicly correct himself if he can’t. The lawsuit seeks compensatory damages, but Duong insists he’s not looking for any money from Huynh.

“I just want to set the record straight. People have been killed because of communist accusations, you know,” Duong told San José Spotlight, adding the claims don’t carry the same weight in English as they do in Vietnamese.

In 1987, a Vietnamese American journalist in Orange County, Hoai Diep Tu, died after what police said was an intentional house fire possibly set by anti-communists. Duong said if he doesn’t stop Huynh’s claims now, it could pose a danger to his family.

Duong said he’s been open about his business activities in Vietnam.

“I’m there doing visits and helping the people of Vietnam do environmental cleanup. We’re trying to improve people’s lives over there,” Duong said. “My business doesn’t do anything to help the government.”

Out in public

The feud spilled into the public eye earlier this week in an entirely separate legal drama. San Jose Councilmember Bien Doan filed for a restraining order against Huynh, who Doan alleged aggressively confronted and threatened him, and painted Huynh as having ties to organized crime. Duong testified in support of Doan during the two-day hearing and while on the stand painted Huynh as a name that strikes fear in Little Saigon.

“Many people in the community assume he’s the ‘Godfather,’” Duong testified.

The judge ruled there was no evidence to support this claim, mentioning Huynh held a number of legal business licenses. Doan’s restraining order request was denied.

Huynh is a well-connected leader in San Jose who owns Le Bail Bonds, runs Tax 101 Solutions to help individuals and businesses with taxes and is a mortgage broker at H&L Realty Inc., according to his LinkedIn profile. He’s former vice president of operations at Bay 101 Casino, but left in 2000, around the time he was indicted for allegedly loansharking, threatening and intimidating witnesses, ordering an assault and having links to organized crime. The charges were later dropped.

Duong is also well-connected, but hails from Oakland. After fleeing Vietnam to San Francisco, his family squeezed into two studio apartments, where Duong collected cardboard after school until he was able to purchase his first recycling warehouse in West Oakland — what’s now the largest recycling company in Northern California. The company also has a facility in Vietnam. The company settled claims of wrongfully inflating collection rates in Oakland for $6 million this year. In 2019, the company clashed with San Jose officials over poor recycling performance, which the company in a lawsuit claimed was discrimination.

Doan’s restraining order trial rehashed a core dispute between Duong and Huynh: the San Jose contract. According to witness testimony, the issue came up during a September meeting last year at Grand Century Mall between Doan, Duong and Huynh. In testimony about that meeting, the two men compared their wealth and offered differing accounts of what was said. Duong testified that Huynh insisted Duong owed him for helping him win the waste hauling bid. Huynh testified that Duong merely thanked him for the support while trying to resolve Huynh’s dispute with Doan and the Vietnamese American Business Association.

During the restraining order hearing, Huynh’s attorney questioned whether Duong testified in support of Doan to build credibility in his own lawsuit.

“He’s got a bias there,” attorney Minh Steven Dovan said at the hearing. “If he can discredit Hai Huynh and Hai Huynh loses — it helps his case.”

Contact Brandon Pho at [email protected] or @brandonphooo on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Editor’s Note: Cal Waste Solutions has donated to San José Spotlight.