New reporting on one possible suspect in the Sheng Thao FBI raid shows that state Attorney General Rob Bonta once steered $680,000 in state money to a failed energy startup run by that particular suspect who had an extremely checkered past.

We begin this post by reiterating for the umpteenth time that we still don’t know why the FBI raided Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao’s home on June 20, now more than three months ago (and yes, it is very unusual to go more than three months between a raid, and any official reason given for the raid). We don’t even know for sure if the raid was related to a simultaneous FBI raid of the offices of Oakland’s recycling collector Cal Waste Services and its top executives, prolific political donors David Duong and son Andy Duong. But considering the raids happened at the exact same time, well yes, probably related.


Above we see Andy Duong posing with California Attorney General Rob Bonta, which is not surprising, because as Oaklandside has reported, the Duongs showered lavish political donations to both Republicans and Democrats nationwide. But it has long been accused that many of these donations were illegal “straw donor” donations funneled through other people to skirt campaign finance rules.

One of these alleged straw donors was Mario Juarez, described by the Chronicle as “an Oakland businessman with a history of financial troubles who twice ran for city council.” Juarez has become an increasingly suspect figure since the raids, what with felony charges for $53,000 in bounced checks, and allegedly bilking $4.5 million from investors, including the Duongs. Parenthetically, Juarez also says he’s been beaten up and had his home shot at by god knows who, and presumably he's created some enemies over the years.

Now Bonta, who is well-liked and possibly running for governor in 2026, was just linked to Juarez in a Chronicle investigation that uncovered how Bonta helped broker a giant state grant to one of Juarez’s failed companies in 2015 while Bonta was still in the state Assembly. The grant was supposed to be for $3.4 million, but $680,000 into it, the company went belly-up, and the West Oakland land where the company was supposed to operate still sits empty.


This particular Mario Juarez venture was a 2014-era company called Viridis Fuels, which claimed it could turn food-waste grease into biofuels. Viridis Fuels probably appeared legitimate, it was co-founded by former Oakland Mayor Elihu Harris’s ex-wife Kathy Neal, and its board of directors would ultimately include former Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums’s ex-chief of staff Dan Boggan. The land on which the company intended to operate was in Bonta’s district, as the company had leased six acres in West Oakland near the Bay Bridge.

Bonta’s spokesperson Nathan Click explained to the Chronicle that “His district benefitting from an alternative fuels project that could have addressed environmental concerns and created jobs was his interest in joining other local leaders in supporting the project.”

But a little due diligence into Juarez’s past might have set off some alarm bells. Juarez was in bankruptcy proceedings at the time, and already had two lawsuits from jilted investors regarding this very project. He owed creditors nearly a million bucks, and was at the time accused of merely pocketing investors’ money (This may have been a pattern with Juarez).

There could have been some self-dealing on this project too, as the land was also intended to serve as truck storage for more than 100 of the Duongs’ recycling trucks.

Moreover, the California Energy Commission had already rejected a grant to Viridis Fuels in 2014. Bonta wrote a letter to the agency, and Viridis got the grant the following year, when the commission’s pool of grant money was much higher.

Oh, and Viridis Fuels had no track record whatsoever of accomplishing a single thing. But both Juarez and Neal both had a history of making multiple-thousand dollar contributions to Rob Bonta’s political campaigns, so draw your own conclusions.

Juarez was tarred by a grand theft conviction in 2018, and Neal removed him from the increasingly beleaguered Viridis Fuels. His bankruptcy eligibility was tossed over repeated non-payments, Neal ended up paying whatever few investors got their money back from her own pocket. The vast majority of the state grant money was relinquished, though by that point, $680,000 had gone down the drain.

Once the raid scandal broke in June, Bonta says he gave the Duongs’ $155,000 in campaign donations to charities.


Chronicle reporters are retweeting this article today like it’s the biggest scandal yet from the Sheng Thao raid, and the piece is certainly chock full of good original reporting. But at first blush, this may not even be in the top ten most fucked-up things we’ve learned since the Sheng Thao raids. There’s an old saying in politics that if you can’t describe a scandal in one sentence, it’s probably too complicated for voters to understand. It just took me 24 sentences to explain this one.

But the key thing here is that we still don’t know who or what that FBI raid was all about. So if Juarez is indeed the target, or one of the targets, then yes there is some chance that the 2024 raid on Sheng Thao’s home becomes a political headache for Rob Bonta in the 2026 governor’s race.

Related: Alleged ‘Straw Donor’ in Sheng Thao Controversy Had His Home Shot At, and Was Allegedly Beaten Up [SFist

Image: SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA - NOVEMBER 15: California Attorney General Rob Bonta speaks during a news conference outside of an Amazon distribution facility on November 15, 2021 in San Francisco, California. Bonta announced that Amazon Inc. will have to pay a $500,000 fine after the company failed to adequately notify workers and officials about coronavirus cases at its facilities pursuant to California Assembly Bill 865. The bill also requires companies to share COVID-19 safety plans, benefits and protections with employees. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)