While an Orange County supervisor was under scrutiny, his daughter interned with county prosecutors
Within weeks of it being revealed that Orange County Supervisor Andrew Do had directed millions of dollars in contracts to a nonprofit without disclosing a link to his daughter — a scandal that sparked a lawsuit and a possible federal probe — his daughter began working as an intern for the county’s top prosecutor.
Rhiannon Do worked at the Orange County district attorney’s office for three months earlier this year, a spokesperson for the D.A.’s office confirmed to The Times. County officials said Do was not paid.
For the record:
3:48 p.m. Aug. 29, 2024An earlier version of this story said Rhiannon Do’s internship was four months. It was three.
And at the same time, the county was also trying to account for $13.5 million in contracts that had been directed to Viet America Society, a nonprofit that once listed the supervisor’s daughter as its president. The nonprofit has failed to produce adequate documentation on how it used the county’s money to feed the needy and elderly, according to a lawsuit filed earlier this month.
Three county supervisors said they were unaware of Rhiannon Do’s brief stint at the district attorney’s office while county officials considered a lawsuit against the nonprofit and asked for local and federal officials to step in. The remaining board members did not respond to a request for comment.
According to the lawsuit, Viet America Society and its executives, including Rhiannon Do, “brazenly plundered” taxpayer money intended to feed the needy and instead used it to buy multiple homes. Within days of the lawsuit being filed Aug. 15, agents with the FBI, the IRS and the district attorney’s office were serving search warrants at homes across the county, including a Tustin house purchased by Rhiannon Do in July 2023, and the home of Andrew Do.
Federal agents raided the home of an Orange County supervisor, his daughter and several others in a probe into the alleged improper use of taxpayer money.
LAist was first to report that Andrew Do had failed to disclose his daughter’s ties to Viet America Society during the vote.
Law enforcement officials have declined to provide details on their investigation.
But before the joint investigation between local and federal officials was launched, Rhiannon Do worked as a student volunteer from Jan. 15 to April 17, said Kimberly Edds, a spokesperson for the district attorney’s office.
That she interned with the D.A.’s office, and its investigators participated in last week’s searches alongside federal agents, could raise some problematic questions, said Stan Goldman, a Loyola Law School professor who has testified as an expert witness on conflicts of interest.
“I see it as unwise,” Goldman said. “It’s not a cautious, wise decision. It’s something that could jeopardize the D.A. staying on the case.”
Do has since left VAS but was still involved with the nonprofit during the first weeks of her internship. Sterling Scott Winchell, an attorney who represents the organization, said her work at the nonprofit ended sometime in February.
While at the district attorney’s office, the UC Irvine law student, now in her third year, was assigned to a misdemeanor branch court and placed under the supervision of a misdemeanor line deputy district attorney, Edds said in an email statement.
“She was assigned to perform ministerial duties two days a week for up to a total of 10 hours at the Central Justice Center,” she said.
Do was one of 38 student volunteers, including 11 others from UC Irvine, who took part in the Orange County district attorney’s office law-clerk intern program.
She applied for the program on Nov. 3, 2023.
Edds said hundreds of student volunteer positions are offered every year, and none of the members of the prosecution team assigned to the ongoing investigation, including Orange County Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer, were involved in the selection of student volunteers.
She added that executive managers confirmed Do had no interaction with the office’s Major Fraud Unit or the Special Prosecutions Unit, which oversees public corruption cases, while she volunteered at the D.A.’s office.
All student volunteers undergo a background check before they are brought on for internships, Edds said.
Asked if the D.A.’s office was aware of the allegations regarding Viet America Society and Rhiannon Do’s link to the group, Edds said, “Nothing revealed in that background check disqualified Ms. Do from a volunteer position at the time of its approval.”
Citing the ongoing investigation, she declined to say whether the D.A.’s office was at that time aware of the county’s effort to account for how VAS spent the contract money.
Orange County is suing a nonprofit group and the daughter of one of its own supervisors, accusing them of taking millions of dollars in county contracts and “brazenly plunder[ing] these funds for their own personal gain.”
The county lawsuit alleges that executives with VAS, including Rhiannon Do, siphoned the money from county contracts to their personal bank accounts. County attorneys accuse the supervisor’s 23-year-old daughter of using that money to purchase a home in Tustin in July 2023.
According to the real estate site Redfin, the home was purchased for $1,035,000.
Attorneys for VAS have denied any wrongdoing and said the contracts were fulfilled.
Rhiannon Do’s attorney, David Wiechert, declined to comment on her time at the D.A.’s office but said in an email she is “a hardworking, honest, and law-abiding young woman.”
Andrew Do’s office declined to comment.
Before the joint investigation involving federal and local officials, Orange County Supervisors Katrina Foley and Vicente Sarmiento had been calling for law enforcement to step in and investigate the allegations against VAS. In a statement on Aug. 12, the two supervisors called on Spitzer to investigate the unaccounted funds.
Orange County is demanding that a group linked to Supervisor Andrew Do’s daughter return millions of tax dollars after it failed to show it did the work it was hired to do.
After last week’s raids by federal investigators, Foley and Sarmiento have called on Andrew Do to resign. He will be termed out in November.
Sarmiento, in a statement to The Times, said he was not aware of Rhiannon’s role in the district attorney’s office before being contacted by a reporter. However, he said he had no concerns about the district attorney’s involvement and was glad his pleas for law enforcement to step in were heard.
“The scope of the investigation shows that the district attorney’s office has been involved over several months, and I am glad that my request for action was heard,” he said. “I do not have concerns regarding the D.A. and expect that he will act in accordance with the duties of the office. It is also my hope that the D.A. will always pursue issues related to misconduct or corruption by elected officials at any level in the county.”
A spokesperson for the county referred questions to the district attorney’s office.
Supervisor Doug Chaffee also said he was unaware of Rhiannon Do’s role as an intern.
“The district attorney’s office, like other departments, does not notify the Board offices about their employment of student interns or volunteers,” Chaffee said in a statement.
A spokesperson for Foley said her office has no knowledge of interns in departments outside its own.
The case highlights the tight, interconnected circles law enforcement officials have had to navigate in an investigation that appears to have ensnared one of Orange County’s most influential figures, who has been in politics for at least 16 years.
Before being elected to the Board of Supervisors, Andrew Do served on the Garden Grove City Council. Before that, he worked as an Orange County prosecutor. He is a member of the Republican Party of Orange County’s 72nd Assembly District Committee. His wife, Cheri Pham, is assistant presiding judge of Orange County Superior Court.
Jorge Armando Contreras is sentenced to six years in prison for embezzling millions as the director of fiscal services for the Magnolia School District.
On their own, several of these issues would not present an ethical dilemma or conflict of interest, said Goldman, the law professor. He points out that internships at county prosecutor offices are common positions sought out by law students.
But the accumulation of factors, he says, raises worries that at least the appearance of a conflict could be made.
“These are all little things in itself, but you add three of them together and you say, ethically, maybe you should back off,” he said.
Since the raids on the homes of Do, his daughter and the chief executive of VAS, Peter Pham, calls for Do to resign his seat on the Board of Supervisors have increased.
Do was absent from a board meeting Tuesday.
During the meeting, Foley called on the California attorney general to investigate whether Do lives in the Board of Supervisors’ 1st District, which he represents. The home that was raided by the FBI, in Tustin, is outside his district.
The board is also set to consider on Sept. 10 whether to remove Do from his assignments.
“Andrew, please resign,” Foley said during the Tuesday meeting. “If you truly care about this county, as you have claimed many times in the past, then you will step down so we can begin to heal the deep wounds that you have caused all of us.”
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