The feds sent Oakland a subpoena. Here’s what you need to know about it

OAKLAND — Three weeks after a series of FBI raids threw Oakland into a political frenzy, city officials were expected Thursday morning to begin handing over numerous records to federal authorities as part of grand jury hearings.

The records, produced by the city on the orders of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, reflect much of what is publicly known about the sprawling federal inquiry. So far, no one has been charged. Any indictments or charges would be up to the federal grand jury, a panel of ordinary citizens meeting in secret.

The morning courthouse appearance by representatives from City Attorney Barbara Parker’s office marked the latest checkpoint in a saga that has engulfed Oakland since the June 20 FBI raids on several addresses, including the home where Mayor Sheng Thao lives with her partner, Andre Jones.

Jones has emerged as a primary character in the mysterious drama, along with businessmen David Duong and his son, Andy Duong, who own a local recycling business. Another central figure is political operative, Mario Juarez, who reported multiple attacks on his life in the weeks leading up to last month’s raids, including a shooting outside his East Oakland home.

At an already challenging time for the city’s finances and public safety, federal investigators have turned the public’s attention toward a tangled web of relationships between powerful figures, political insiders and influential businesses.

How did Oakland get here? Below are some important details to keep in mind as the investigation moves forward:

What a federal investigation in Oakland could look like

Now that the existence of a grand jury in this case has become known, it’s worth noting that the key word in most jury proceedings, local or federal, is “secret.”

“You have very limited information around what’s going on,” said Oakland-based civil rights attorney Adante Pointer. “No one’s standing out front, no prosecutor is saying, ‘This is what we’re doing and why.’ There are lot of gaps left to be filled in.”

Criminal justice experts, defense attorneys and prosecutors tend to agree: it is easy to get a criminal grand jury — a panel made up of ordinary citizens — to issue a subpoena or even indict someone with charges.

A Washington Post report in 2014 studied over 160,000 cases pursued by federal prosecutors in a single year and found that grand juries decided against returning an indictment in only 11 of them. Subpoenas, in that context, are an even easier sell.

“While in theory the grand jurors are in charge, in practice they overwhelmingly defer to the U.S. Attorney,” said Robert Weisberg, a Stanford professor who teaches criminal law. “This is especially true because there is no party in the grand jury room arguing against the prosecutor.”

On the other hand, attorneys also believe that federal authorities file charges more judiciously than local prosecutors, because they often pick and choose their cases instead of reacting to crime the way police do. There’s always room for overreach, however.

“When the feds come for you, it tends to be that they think their case is already made,” Pointer said. “By the time they show up, they’re confident in what they have.”

What’s at stake for Mayor Sheng Thao

The grand jury sought a wide range of records from the city and as of now only a small portion appear directly related to Mayor Thao.

But public scrutiny has largely fixated on Thao, who is fending off a recall effort that qualified for the Nov. 5 ballot a day before the June 20 raids.

An oddly public split with her attorney and her spokesperson’s quick resignation didn’t help the perception that Thao’s office is reeling.

Since declaring in her first public address on June 24 that she was not the target of the raids or of a federal investigation, Thao has only doubled down on her innocence.

But when presented the opportunity to defend Jones, her significant other of 10 years, Thao offered no such confidence and directed questions to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

That the jury singled out “documents and communications” related to Jones in its request for city records has further centered the mayor’s partner, a well-connected political veteran who somehow appears to fly below the radar in Oakland.

Thao and Jones’ calendar entries are also listed in the subpoena, which further demands the city hand over records related to various city appointments made by the mayor, including to the Port of Oakland board and the city administrator’s office.

The mayor rarely brings up her partner in interviews, and though his work has taken him to various different posts — chief of staff to Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan, a paid advocate for charter schools, an intergovernmental liaison for cannabis regulation — he doesn’t seem to raise many eyebrows.

Nearly a dozen people interviewed by this news organization who knew Jones in at least one of those working capacities remember him as mostly a quiet presence. Others recall him as friendly, unique only for preferring the Cleveland Browns to local sports teams.

It’s unclear how Jones or even Thao connect to the other, more revelatory breadcrumbs unearthed by news reports in the weeks since the raids.

But with a recall effort looming, it may be imperative for Thao to find ways to distance herself from the federal investigation.

“It can be very difficult to survive recalls,” said Jason McDaniel, an associate professor of political science at San Francisco State University

A recap of who — and what — may be of interest to prosecutors

The grand jury subpoena offered a glimpse into what federal investigators may be looking for — and it appears to overlap with some context that came to light in media reports in the aftermath of the raids.

There’s the various business dealings and political relationships of the Duong family, which has used its money to influence politics in the Bay Area and California for decades.

The subpoena sought city records on the Duongs’ main business, California Waste Solutions, which has a recycling contract in Oakland, as well as those involving a smaller, lesser-known homebuilding company. Both operate in the same waterfront office suite.

That second company, Evolutionary Homes, was founded by David Duong, his son Andy and a political operative, Mario Juarez, a two-time City Council candidate and mainstay in Oakland politics who reported two attacks on his life in the weeks before the raids.

Juarez, who was fired at nine times in a June 9 shooting, told police he believed the murder attempt was in “retaliation” for his involvement in a criminal investigation.

Weeks before, on May 3, Juarez claimed the Duongs threatened him with violence and assaulted him at 1211 Embarcadero — the office where both California Waste Solutions and Evolutionary Homes are based.

Meanwhile, Juarez is facing felony fraud charges for mailers he orchestrated against Thao’s opponents in the 2022 mayoral election.

Other projects started by the Duongs, including efforts to build housing and a recycling facility at the former Oakland Army base — where city officials once explored placing homes amid a homelessness crisis — also appear in the subpoena.