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California Attorney General Rob Bonta received a letter last year warning that an East Bay businessman under federal investigation possessed a recording of him “in a compromising position,” according to documents obtained by the Bay Area News Group. The May 2024 letter was sent by Oakland political operative Mario Juarez, who claimed businessman Andy Duong — later indicted in a sprawling corruption probe — had secretly recorded Bonta and could use the footage for blackmail.
Juarez alleged that Duong “routinely engages in entertaining elected and other officials to extract recordings without their knowledge to later use in blackmail circumstances.”
The revelation comes after campaign filings showed Bonta spent nearly $468,000 in legal fees while cooperating with federal investigators examining alleged bribery and influence-peddling involving Duong, his father David Duong, and former Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao.
Bonta’s senior adviser, Dan Newman, confirmed that the attorney general’s office received the letter and shared it with law enforcement, but denied any connection between the correspondence and Bonta’s legal expenses.
“They were not related,” Newman said, explaining that the legal spending covered attorneys who “helped provide information that could be useful to the federal investigation.”
Newman told the Los Angeles Times that Bonta was contacted by investigators because he was considered “a possible victim,” not a suspect. The attorney general himself has dismissed the letter’s allegations as false. “The reference to any video is absolutely not true. It’s false and there is no video,” Bonta told KQED in an interview Thursday.
Bonta said his legal team began working with federal authorities roughly 14 months ago to compile materials ahead of questioning. “They helped gather all the information the federal government was interested in,” he said.
Duong’s attorneys, meanwhile, denied the accusation outright. “Andy Duong vigorously denies the baseless allegations in this letter,” his legal team said in a statement, calling Juarez’s claims “fabricated” and citing “significant credibility issues.”
Juarez, a former Oakland City Council candidate, has been identified in federal filings as “Co-Conspirator 1,” a key informant in the corruption case that led to multiple indictments this year. Prosecutors allege that Thao and her partner Andre Jones accepted bribes and campaign assistance from the Duongs in exchange for help securing lucrative city contracts for their recycling and housing businesses.
Court documents describe Juarez as an intermediary who funneled payments to Jones and helped distribute political mailers attacking Thao’s opponents during the 2022 mayoral election. One message cited in the indictments shows Juarez texting Andy Duong after the vote: “We may go to jail … but we are $100 million dollars richer.”
Bonta’s connection to Duong appears to have been largely social. The two were frequently pictured together on Duong’s Instagram account between 2018 and 2022, appearing at sporting events, political gatherings, and charity functions. Duong once referred to Bonta as “my brother” in a 2021 post featuring photos of the pair with boxer Manny Pacquiao.
The letter to Bonta followed a violent rupture between Juarez and the Duongs in May 2024. According to police reports, Juarez alleged that he was assaulted by the family at their Oakland showroom, while the Duongs accused him of holding them hostage and demanding money. Days later, Juarez reported a drive-by shooting at his home in the city’s Fruitvale district, though police have not identified suspects or established a motive.
Juarez’s May 9 letter also accused the Duongs of paying more than $80,000 to Jones for “fictitious work” and making illegal campaign contributions. He claimed he went to Bonta out of fear that the Duong family’s connections to Oakland police leadership might shield them from scrutiny.
Bonta’s office responded weeks later through its Public Inquiry Unit, advising Juarez to contact local authorities “who are primarily responsible” for law enforcement matters.
In court, attorneys for Thao, Jones, and the Duongs have joined efforts to discredit Juarez’s testimony ahead of a trial tentatively set for October 2026.
Despite the swirl of allegations, Bonta — who has served as California’s top law enforcement officer since 2021 — maintains he was not a target of the probe. “The AG’s involvement is over,” Newman said Wednesday.
