OAKLAND, Calif. — Ex-Mayor Sheng Thao betrayed Oakland by making herself “open for business” to illegal bribes before stepping foot into the mayor’s office, federal prosecutors declared Wednesday at the start of a federal corruption trial detailing the East Bay’s largest political scandal in decades.

Yet that narrative came under immediate attack from the recalled mayor’s attorneys, who immediately framed the allegations as the imagined creation of the government’s star witness.

The dueling narratives dominated the opening statements of a corruption trial that threatens to further rock the East Bay’s political scene, more than two years after federal agents first raided the homes of Thao, her romantic partner Andre Jones and the father-son business duo of David and Andy Duong. Together, the quartet has pleaded not guilty to numerous charges, including conspiracy to commit bribery and wire and mail fraud. The most serious charges carry potential prison sentences of up to 20 years.

For the first time Wednesday, federal prosecutors revealed the existence of an Apple note on Andy Duong’s cell phone that allegedly outlined the supposed scheme in fall 2022, months earlier than any other known written account for the plan. It suggested Thao committed to buying 300 housing units from a fledgling company co-founded by the Duongs and ensuring Oakland would enter a 10-year contract extension for their recycling company, California Waste Solutions. In return, Jones would become a “consultant” for the housing business.

Prosecutors had previously detailed another outline for the scheme — captured in a text message by a fifth participant, Mario Juarez — in March 2023, which called for the Duongs to bankroll $75,000 in campaign mailers to help Thao win the November 2022 mayoral election, while ensuring Jones would receive a $300,000 “no show” job with the Duongs’ new housing company, Evolutionary Homes. The alleged agreement also called for the Duongs to hand pick numerous political hires and appointments in Thao’s administration.

On Wednesday, prosecutors also unveiled a never-before-seen trove of clandestine pictures taken by Andy Duong of the quartet meeting numerous times during the alleged scheme, while confirming for the first time that their investigation into Thao began a year before her alleged scheme collapsed in spring 2024.

Standing before the jury, Assistant U.S. Attorney Abraham Fine made clear that the scheme “was not politics as usual — this was politics for profit.”

“This is a case about a public official who put her power up for sale,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Abraham Fine. “A public official who put greed first, who put her own monetary interest above the people she was supposed to serve.”

“She was powerful, but was also corrupt and she betrayed her oath of office,” he added.

The only problem with that story, countered Thao’s attorney, is that it was all “pure fiction.”

Motioning to Thao — who stood in a purple dress and dark blue suit jacket on the other end of the courtroom — the attorney suggested prosecutors portrayed her all wrong. The real Sheng Thao, he said, is a “young mayor full of ideas, visions and energy to shake up the political system” who “still carries credit card balances and pays her bills, just like anyone else.”

“She wasn’t running a bribery scheme for any kind of money — money she never asked for, and money she never received,” said the attorney, Jeff Tsai, who stressed that prosecutors found no evidence Thao even had any knowledge of the alleged plot.

He spoke before an overflow crowd that spilled into two courtrooms, while dozens of people rallied outside the federal courthouse in downtown Oakland in support of the Duong family and, in particular, its patriarch. Hailing as far away as San Jose, the roughly two-dozen demonstrators held signs declaring “No political bias,” and “stand with David Duong,” along with calls for “The whole truth — not half the story.”

As with every other attorney for the four defendants, Tsai made clear that the foundation of his defense laid in the credibility — or lack thereof — of the government’s star witness, Juarez. A failed two-time Oakland City Council candidate, Juarez co-founded the Duong’s housing company Evolutionary Homes and exchanged numerous texts with Andy Duong about the alleged scheme.

Staring straight at the jury, Tsai stressed that his client repeatedly tried keeping Juarez at a distance as the alleged scheme purportedly took root in October 2022. She later acted against Juarez’s explicit wishes by hiring someone as interim city administrator early in her term that Juarez wanted fired — a risk, Tsai said, given that Juarez “didn’t take no for an answer.”

“Sheng Thao was one of those few people who Mario Juarez could not control,” said Tsai. “And because of that, she was not a useful tool for him. And as we expect you’ll learn in this case, that is why we are here.”

“She was managing a volatile political figure,” Tsai added. “Not entering into a criminal conspiracy with him.”

Throughout opening statements Wednesday, the other defendants’ attorneys unleashed a thesaurus worth of barbs and disparaging adjectives to describe Juarez, calling him by turns “the master of half-truths” and “a sophisticated political operator.” Fine, the prosecutor, even acknowledged to the jury that Juarez was “no angel.”

“He was and is a consummate hustler,” said Andy Duong’s attorney, Winston Chan. “His face should be in the dictionary under ‘Hustler.’”

For hours, attorneys for Jones and the Duongs picked apart the prosecution’s case, suggesting prosecutors cherry-picked evidence to paint their clients in a poor light.

Andre Jones’ attorney portrayed the $95,000 that Jones received from the Duongs as merely advance payments on commission sales that Jones was expected to make for the company, once its housing units were manufactured in Mexico. Not a dime of that money ever made its way into Thao’s bank accounts, which were kept separate during her relationship with Jones, added the attorney, Mark Goldrosen.

In fact, Thao’s relationship with Jones had grown increasingly rocky in 2023, so much so that she considered leaving him in the middle of the alleged bribery scheme, Goldrosen said.

“The same time the government is claiming there was a bribery scheme in place — with lots and lots of money coming to Sheng Thao — she was saying she was going to walk away from the person who was her link to all this hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars she was going to get?” he asked the jury.

David Duong’s attorney also pleaded ignorance.

“You cannot agree to a deal that no one told you about,” said the longtime businessman’s attorney, Jeffrey Schenk. “David Duong did not know about an illegal bribe, illegal payments, illegal deals. That is the heart of this case.”

Schenk instead suggested that David Duong acted like a careful businessman throughout the alleged scheme, including by bringing on Jones – who had a lengthy background in government relations posts – as a consultant with the housing company, and even memorializing the arrangement with a written contract in spring 2023.

“If you have this relationship, and you’re ashamed of it, you’re not documenting it,” Schenk said. “What David does here is what a businessman would do.”

Testimony in the case is expected to begin Thursday, with prosecutors calling Thao’s former chief of staff, Leigh Hanson, to the stand to describe the inner workings of the former mayor’s administration and the role that Jones played in it.

On Wednesday, Andy Duong’s attorney chided prosecutors for leaving out key texts and details in their opening statements, imploring jurors to “ask yourself: why are they trying to whitewash you?” The attorney said his client largely viewed Juarez’s plans as merely pie-in-the-sky ambitions – the musings of a man who craved political power in Oakland and would stop at nothing to get it.

“There was never any deal amongst the defendants to begin with,” said the attorney, Winston Chan. “And the only deal was in Mario’s own imagination.”

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