A new set of filings allege that a recycling company and a security firm funneled nearly $300,000 to a Sheng Thao political operative in exchange for lucrative city contracts, and now that political operative may have flipped and could be cooperating with the feds.

As we have noted many times in the now six months since the FBI raided the home of Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao, we still don’t know why the FBI raided her home, and they have yet to announce any charges. Nor do we know why the FBI raided the homes of prolific political donors David and Andy Duong that same day, nor why they raided the offices of the company the Duongs own Cal Waste Solutions, which handles recycling collection in Oakland.

But there has been a drumbeat of speculation since those raids that they were related to illegal campaign donations from the Duongs to Thao’s and other Oakland politicians’ political campaigns. And now the Bay Area News Group reports that Alameda County prosecutors have filed a legal motion accusing the Duongs of making those illegal donations in exchange for lucrative city contracts, and supporting Thao’s 2022 mayoral campaign in hopes of getting those contracts.

The filing does not come from the FBI, but from the Alameda County District Attorney's Office. Yes, that is the office that Pamela Price was in charge of until last week, following her recall from office. And it may be no coincidence that these allegations didn’t come while Price was around, because she may have some involvement with the alleged wrongdoing described here.  

The alleged wrongdoing does not just involve the recycling collector Cal Waste Solutions, but also a security company called ABC Security Systems, which handles security for many Oakland city buildings and has been named in this scandal before.

“These companies have valuable contracts with the city of Oakland, and an interest in the election of then-candidate for mayor, Sheng Thao,” Alameda County senior assistant district attorney Kwixuan Maloof wrote in Monday’s legal motion. That motion also describes an alleged funneler of those illegal donations Mario Juarez as “a conduit for these companies to help the mayor win and preserve and enhance the companies’ access to taxpayer-funded contracts.”

The donations in question were from the 2022 Oakland mayoral election which Thao won, though there have since been accusations that Juarez had illegally laundered the Doungs’ money and disguised them as his own donations to skirt campaign finance rules. Juarez is also facing felony charges for allegedly bouncing $50,000 worth of checks, checks which just happened to pay for pro-Sheng Thao campaign mailers.

The court documents claim that Cal Waste Solutions and ABC Security Service paid Juarez a combined $290,000 once he handled the production and mailing of those flyers.

And in a twist, the documents also allege that Juarez paid Sheng Thao’s romantic partner Andre Jones $7,500 after the election, for reasons that are not explained. Jones also had his phone seized in the June FBI raids.

The Bay Area News Group did a ton of great reporting on this story, but the most intriguing tidbit is in the final sentence. That sentence says that Mario Juarez “is widely believed to be cooperating with federal authorities” in the FBI investigation.

So if Juarez has flipped and is talking to the feds, that means the federal investigation likely is about these illegal campaign donations, and what the donors got in return. And if that’s the case, other politicians who have connections to Juarez might have reason to be worried, too.

Related: FBI Probe That Brought Raid of Sheng Thao’s Home Has Witnesses Giving Closed-Door Testimony [SFist]

Image: Mayor Sheng Thao via Youtube