{"id":24097,"date":"2025-11-22T16:49:26","date_gmt":"2025-11-22T16:49:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/?p=24097"},"modified":"2025-11-22T16:49:27","modified_gmt":"2025-11-22T16:49:27","slug":"%f0%9f%98%8a-california-ag-named-in-compromising-video-claim-amid-federal-probe-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/?p=24097","title":{"rendered":"\ud83d\ude0a California AG Named in \u2018Compromising\u2019 Video Claim Amid Federal Probe"},"content":{"rendered":"
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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 \u201cin a compromising position,\u201d according to\u00a0documents<\/a>\u00a0obtained by the Bay Area News Group. The May 2024 letter was sent by Oakland political operative Mario Juarez, who claimed businessman Andy Duong \u2014 later indicted in a sprawling corruption probe \u2014 had secretly recorded Bonta and could use the footage for blackmail.<\/p>\n

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Juarez alleged that Duong \u201croutinely engages in entertaining elected and other officials to extract recordings without their knowledge to later use in blackmail circumstances.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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Bonta\u2019s senior adviser, Dan Newman, confirmed that the attorney general\u2019s office received the letter and shared it with law enforcement, but denied any connection between the correspondence and Bonta\u2019s legal expenses.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were not related,\u201d Newman said, explaining that the legal spending covered attorneys who \u201chelped provide information that could be useful to the federal investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Newman told the Los Angeles Times that Bonta was contacted by investigators because he was considered \u201ca possible victim,\u201d not a suspect. The attorney general himself has dismissed the letter\u2019s allegations as false. \u201cThe reference to any video is absolutely not true. It\u2019s false and there is no video,\u201d Bonta told KQED in an interview Thursday.<\/p>\n

Bonta said his legal team began working with federal authorities roughly 14 months ago to compile materials ahead of questioning. \u201cThey helped gather all the information the federal government was interested in,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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Duong\u2019s attorneys, meanwhile, denied the accusation outright. \u201cAndy Duong vigorously denies the baseless allegations in this letter,\u201d his legal team said in a statement, calling Juarez\u2019s claims \u201cfabricated\u201d and citing \u201csignificant credibility issues.\u201d<\/p>\n

Juarez, a former Oakland City Council candidate, has been identified in federal filings as \u201cCo-Conspirator 1,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

Court documents describe Juarez as an intermediary who funneled payments to Jones and helped distribute political mailers attacking Thao\u2019s opponents during the 2022 mayoral election. One message cited in the indictments shows Juarez texting Andy Duong after the vote: \u201cWe may go to jail \u2026 but we are $100 million dollars richer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bonta\u2019s connection to Duong appears to have been largely social. The two were frequently pictured together on Duong\u2019s Instagram account between 2018 and 2022, appearing at sporting events, political gatherings, and charity functions. Duong once referred to Bonta as \u201cmy brother\u201d in a 2021 post featuring photos of the pair with boxer Manny Pacquiao.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s Fruitvale district, though police have not identified suspects or established a motive.<\/p>\n

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Juarez\u2019s May 9 letter also accused the Duongs of paying more than $80,000 to Jones for \u201cfictitious work\u201d and making illegal campaign contributions. He claimed he went to Bonta out of fear that the Duong family\u2019s connections to Oakland police leadership might shield them from scrutiny.<\/p>\n

Bonta\u2019s office responded weeks later through its Public Inquiry Unit, advising Juarez to contact local authorities \u201cwho are primarily responsible\u201d for law enforcement matters.<\/p>\n

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In court, attorneys for Thao, Jones, and the Duongs have joined efforts to discredit Juarez\u2019s testimony ahead of a trial tentatively set for October 2026.<\/p>\n

Despite the swirl of allegations, Bonta \u2014 who has served as California\u2019s top law enforcement officer since 2021 \u2014 maintains he was not a target of the probe. \u201cThe AG\u2019s involvement is over,\u201d Newman said Wednesday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u00a0Getty Images This article may contain commentary which reflects the author’s opinion. California Attorney General Rob Bonta received a letter last year warning that an East Bay businessman under federal … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24095,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24097"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24097\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24098,"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24097\/revisions\/24098"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}