OAKLAND — The U.S. Attorney’s Office has ordered the city of Oakland to hand over numerous records — including documents related to Mayor Sheng Thao’s partner, Andre Jones — as part of a federal grand jury investigation related to last month’s FBI raids.
After weeks of silence, the subpoena made public Monday offers the first glimpse into what federal authorities may be after and confirms the existence of a federal grand jury, which would hold secret hearings to determine if there is enough evidence to file charges or indictments in the sprawling case.
U.S. Attorney Ismail J. Ramsey identified records related to Jones, Thao, the Duong family and others connected to the June 20 FBI raids as being of interest to federal investigators. He warned Oakland City Attorney Barbara Parker that disclosing any of these records could “seriously impede or thwart this important investigation.”
Parker, in turn, sent out an internal memo last week requiring City Hall workers to “preserve” documents “in connection with the United States government’s criminal investigation relating to California Waste Solutions and the Duong family,” according to a copy obtained by this news organization.
The FBI raided a home shared by Thao and Jones, along with two residences tied to Oakland businessmen David Duong and Andy Duong, as well as the headquarters of their recycling company, California Waste Solutions. The office shares a suite with an obscure homebuilding company also owned by the family — and identified in the subpoena.
Among the records the U.S. Attorney’s Office is seeking are “communications related to Andre Jones” and “all calendar entries or records of the existence of planned or scheduled meeting” with Thao or Jones from June 2022 to the present.
In an interview with KPIX, Mayor Thao again insisted that she is not the subject of the FBI’s investigation. When asked about Jones’ possible involvement, she declined to comment and advised that anyone asking should instead contact the U.S Attorney’s Office.
Jones could not be immediately reached for comment, and it’s unclear if he has retained an attorney. The mayor’s personal counsel, Jeff Tsai, said Monday that he is not representing Jones. The city attorney’s office declined comment.
No charges have been announced in the FBI’s inquiry.
Records that fall under the city’s preservation order are “documents and communications concerning” the following:
- California Waste Solutions and its employees and representatives
- The use or development of the former Oakland Army Base
- Any actual or contemplated declarations of a local emergency relating to homelessness
- Any actual or contemplated contracts between the city and any waste-management company
- Evolutionary Homes LLC and its employees or representatives
- The city’s policies and practices relating to the retention and destruction of documents
The types of records employees are being asked to keep are social media posts, text messages, voicemails, calendars, word-processing files and spreadsheets, powerpoint presentations, handwritten notes, memos, faxes, drawings, photographs and audio and video recordings.
Other records being sought appear to be more closely tied to the mayor’s office: “all documents and communications relating to any appointments to any City of Oakland post or position” and “all documents or communications concerning the 2022 City mayoral election.”
Evolutionary Homes is a business run by the politically connected Duong family that aims to build homes from shipping containers for homeless families. It was founded alongside Mario Juarez, a political operative and two-time Oakland City Council candidate who is alleged to have been at the center of controversial mailers targeting Thao’s rivals in the days leading up to the 2022 mayoral election Thao ultimately won.
Juarez was charged with a felony earlier this year after prosecutors say he wrote bogus checks to pay for the mailers. More recently, he was assaulted and shot at in the days and weeks before the FBI raids in attacks that remain under investigation by Oakland police, according to his attorney and authorities.Numerous elected officials, former political staffers and local business officials said they had been familiar with Jones for several years but didn’t know much about him outside of his previous role as Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan’s chief of staff.
But Jones, who served in the mid-1990s as a political consultant for the San Francisco 49ers, seemingly built enough connections in California to land an appointment by Gov. Jerry Brown in 2017 to a role in the Bureau of Cannabis Control just as the state’s legal pot industry was getting started in earnest.
It was in the office of Kaplan — a longtime progressive councilmember who previously ran twice for mayor and once for a county supervisor seat — where Jones and Thao met in 2012 when he was the chief of staff and she was an intern who’d just graduated from UC Berkeley.
The two have now been in a relationship for a decade and live in a family home just below Joaquin Miller Park.
Amid rumors circulating among her opponents, Thao’s representatives said Jones has never worked for the mayor’s administration or received special benefits for being her partner, such as special access to City Hall offices.
But Jones is no stranger to the East Bay’s convoluted political landscape. After serving as Kaplan’s chief of staff, he took a job in 2016 as a regional director for the California Charter Schools Association, partnering with wealthy investor Ron Beller to build a new, independently run school at a vacant campus site in Richmond.
As with most charter schools, the idea proved unpopular among the United Teachers of Richmond labor group. An extended fight over the proposed school, which ultimately wasn’t built, led Jones to be seen as an unwelcome disruptor of the existing school district.
Still, several prominent members of the group opposing the charter plan do not remember Jones as much more than a quiet presence flanking Beller, a former Goldman Sachs partner who had just moved to the Bay Area from London.
Jones’ role with the Bureau of Cannabis Control ended in 2021, around the time that the agency was revamped to become the California Department of Cannabis Control, the state agency said.
Shomik Mukherjee is a reporter covering Oakland. Call or text him at 510-905-5495 or email him at smukherjee@bayareanewsgroup.com.
