Scandal shadows Andrew Do's final year as an Orange County supervisor

County Supervisor Andrew Do listens at a meeting

April 8, 2024 3 AM PT

Andrew Do squeaked onto the Orange County Board of Supervisors by 43 votes in 2015, defeating a veteran politician to become the second Vietnamese American ever to serve on the board.

He did so by waging an aggressive voter registration campaign, making himself ubiquitous in Little Saigon’s Vietnamese-language media, and sharing a backstory many found familiar. As a child, he had fled Vietnam equipped with little more than English and French dictionaries.

In the years since, he has become one of Southern California’s most prominent Vietnamese American politicians, touting the fight against homelessness as one of his signature achievements. When the county reached a landmark settlement in federal court with advocates for the homeless in 2019, coupling anti-camping laws with outreach services, Do was the face of the government effort.

Orange County Supervisor Andrew Do speaks during a ribbon-cutting ceremony

But in this final year of his second full term — his last on the board — he has been dogged by allegations of impropriety. Community groups and the Orange County Register have called for his resignation. He has responded with invective against the media, including the LAist reporter who broke the story that accused him of directing millions of dollars to a nonprofit linked to his 22-year-old daughter without revealing her role in the nonprofit.

In November, around the time of that disclosure, Do made a disastrous court appearance in which he again failed to disclose a potential conflict of interest involving his family, leading the judge to declare a mistrial in a lawsuit involving a homeless services center.

Do is now facing an uncertain political future. In a sign of his waning influence, his chosen successor for his supervisor’s seat failed to place in the top two in the March primary.

“I have trouble trusting what his office is doing when it seems to be a massive redistribution of wealth from taxpayers to his family members,” said Jodi Balma, a professor of political science at Fullerton College.

The Viet America Society, which registered in 2020, says its mission is to feed needy people, provide mental health services and promote Vietnamese culture.

Do’s daughter, Rhiannon Do, now a law student at UC Irvine, has been listed on paperwork variously as its president, vice president or “case manager/program assistant.”

The nonprofit has failed to produce a legally required audit, making it unclear how the millions in county-allocated funds, including federal money earmarked for COVID-19 relief, were spent.

On its face, at least, Do’s behavior does not run afoul of county policies, which allow supervisors to direct money to nonprofits run by their adult children without telling the public about the relationship.

The county does not seem poised to change its rules anytime soon. Ethics rules proposed by Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento in January were voted down by the board.

“If the county of Orange broke no rules, we need rules,” Balma said. “If Andrew Do broke no rules, we need rules to make sure this never happens again.”

In September 2022, with the five supervisors’ districts splitting federal coronavirus relief funds earmarked for “social needs,” the board voted unanimously to approve $6.9 million in discretionary funds for Do’s district.

Orange County Board of Supervisors Chairman Andrew Do speaks during an event

According to public records obtained by The Times, Do’s office sent $2.2 million of that money to the Viet America Society between December 2022 and March 2023 and an additional $1 million in October 2023 for a Vietnam War memorial. The board had decided that proper uses for the coronavirus relief money included parks, infrastructure, “projects and programs.”

In June 2023, the board voted unanimously to approve $3 million in discretionary funds, this time from the county’s general fund, for each of the five supervisors’ districts. Do directed his $3 million to the Viet America Society in August 2023.

According to LAist, the news site that has spearheaded reporting on the controversy, Do has directed as much as $13.5 million in government money to the nonprofit, often without placing it on a public agenda and without disclosing his daughter’s connection to the group.

Sterling Winchell, an attorney representing Viet America Society, said the nonprofit is commissioning an audit on the federal funds, adding that the group remains in good standing.

“If I have anything to say about it, they’re going to remain in good standing,” Winchell said. “I’m going to make sure this gets fixed.”

Winchell said he did not know exactly how much money was actually delivered to the nonprofit. He said it “could be true” that $13.5 million was allocated, but not distributed.

“If you don’t do the job, you’re not getting 5 cents,” he said.

Though Rhiannon Do’s name has appeared in Viet America Society paperwork intermittently as an officer, Winchell said she had only worked as a case manager and administrator at Warner Wellness Center — the nonprofit’s business name — at an annual salary of $18,000.

Asked why Rhiannon Do signed her name under the title “president” of Viet America Society on a county agreement in December 2022, Winchell said it was a mistake. “She didn’t know what she was signing,” he said.

Andrew Do did not return calls for comment. He represents Orange County’s 1st Supervisorial District, a large and diverse area covering the communities of Cypress, Fountain Valley, Garden Grove, Huntington Beach, La Palma, Los Alamitos, Westminster and Seal Beach. One of the signature events he sponsors is the free Tet Festival at Mile Square Regional Park in Fountain Valley, which draws thousands of people annually.

According to Supervisor Do’s Facebook page, his daughter graduated from high school in June 2019 and went to UC Davis. She was an intern at the Steinberg Institute from fall 2020 to spring 2021. A website for the Women’s Law Society at UC Irvine lists Rhiannon Do as a member.

The Orange County Register’s editorial board, which had repeatedly endorsed Andrew Do during his campaigns, called for his resignation in November, writing that “it’s impossible to ignore the pattern of cronyism and corruption that has been repeatedly affirmed.”

In an opinion piece of his own, Do accused the Register of spreading “gross misinformation.”

He wrote that the Register and the LAist reporter, Nick Gerda, got facts wrong, “radically” inflating the amount of the county contracts at issue, and failing to note that Viet America Society had been under three COVID-related county contracts “well before [Do’s] daughter was hired as an employee to help run its mental health clinic.”

“Of note, my daughter was not a director or officer and she did not handle any of the non-profit’s finances,” he wrote.

Do’s story is well-known. His family fled Saigon during the communist takeover in 1975 and settled in Orange County, and he went on to earn a law degree at UC Hastings College of the Law. He worked as a prosecutor, ran a sandwich shop and served on the Garden Grove City Council from 2008 to 2011.

Do served as Janet Nguyen’s chief of staff during her stint as 1st District supervisor, and enjoyed her endorsement when he ran to replace her in a special election in 2015. He entered the race with far less name recognition than that of his opponent, former state Sen. Lou Correa (D-Santa Ana), and beat him by a thin margin.

He won a full four-year term in 2016 and again in 2020. He will be termed out in January 2025, and had endorsed his chief of staff, Van Tran, in the primary to replace him in District 1. But Tran was eliminated in the March election, with Nguyen, now a state senator, winning 43% of the vote in the race for her old seat and heading for a November runoff against Frances Marquez.

Balma, the Fullerton College professor, said Tran’s connection to Do likely cost him votes. If not for Do’s scandals, “there were many people who might have supported Van Tran to continue what Andrew Do had been doing,” she said.

The Harbor Institute for Immigrant and Economic Justice, a community group, is among those calling for Do’s resignation.

“Years later, we still have no idea how those millions and millions of dollars were spent,” said Mai Nguyen Do, the group’s research and policy manager, who is not related to the supervisor. “Every day, we seem to have more questions about how these dollars were allocated.”

Supervisor Do has been caught up in other controversies in recent years. In 2022, he ran afoul of the Fair Political Practices Commission, which fined him $12,000 for using his official position with the CalOptima board to approve the extension of a lobbying contract to a campaign contributor.

In 2015, Do was accused of not living in the district he represents, but Do called the claim “baseless,” and the O.C. district attorney’s office cleared him.

Supervisor Sarmiento, a Democrat who joined the unanimous board vote in June 2023 to approve the $3 million per district in discretionary funds — which in the 1st District went to Viet America Society — told The Times that he did so “prior to any disclosure” that the nonprofit was linked to Do’s daughter “or that the contract with VAS would raise other ethical concerns.”

At a meeting in January, the board deadlocked in a 2-2 vote on Sarmiento’s proposal to require that supervisors reveal close family connections when money is awarded. Do left the room before the vote.

One of those who voted against the ethics rule was board chair Donald Wagner, who said he sees nothing wrong with what Do has done.

“I think what has been reported is frankly being blown out of proportion,” said Wagner, a Republican like Do. “Clearly, he didn’t violate the law. Nobody has said that he has. The question really is whether [Viet America Society] is doing the job. There are questions. They are a relatively small operation, and we don’t have the accounting from them, which is disappointing.”

Wagner said he was not aware that Do’s daughter had any connection to Viet America Society, “tangential or not,” when he voted to approve the discretionary funds.

“He never did try to exert any influence on me,” Wagner said. “By and large, we’re given the discretionary money, and we’re allowed to spend it as we deem appropriate.”

Wagner said that Do’s legacy will outlast this controversy, and that people will remember his leading role in clearing homeless encampments from riverbeds and the courthouse plaza.

He said he too is waiting for Viet America Society’s audit of its finances.

“I am expecting it literally any day now,” Wagner said. “I don’t know what it will say. Hopefully it will say the county got bang for its buck.”