Orange County officials are demanding the refund of millions in tax dollars that county Supervisor Andrew Do gave to a nonprofit linked to his daughter — saying Viet America Society has failed to show it actually did the work it was paid to do.
The repayment demands come shortly after the nonprofit failed to meet another deadline to submit a long-awaited audit, which was supposed to answer how the money was spent.
The new details are outlined in letters obtained by LAist. They disclose that last week, VAS fired the auditors it hired for the audit, the day after those auditors said they would officially find that the group failed to follow requirements to track what it did with the money.
The $2.2 million demanded to be returned was directed by Do to VAS to feed needy seniors during the pandemic. The letters say the group has failed to show that the meals were handed out as required by the county’s contract.
Do chose the group for funding from January 2021 through May 2022, without public votes naming the vendor. Some of the money was granted under the county’s emergency authority to issue contracts nearly a year into COVID-19, and the rest was federal pandemic response funding supervisors granted themselves authority to spend without having to name the recipients on public agendas.
Public records show VAS was led on and off by Do’s now 22-year-old daughter Rhiannon Do. The family ties were not publicly disclosed when Supervisor Do directed the taxpayer money to the group, and wasn’t revealed publicly until reporting by LAist. State law does not require such a disclosure, although a bill making its way through the state legislature that was spurred by LAist’s investigation would change that.
The letters, obtained through a public records request, also raise concerns about “questionable” payments made to Rhiannon Do and to another business where she was listed as an officer. The nonprofit has refused to explain those and other payments, according to the letters.
The refund demand
In all, LAist has reported that Do directed at least $13.5 million in taxpayer dollars to Viet America Society since it was formed in 2020 most of which was given to the group after his daughter was first listed as an officer on government filings. The letters, which were sent to VAS last week, show the county has ordered VAS to reimburse $2.2 million — the entire amount of two contracts awarded to the group to feed seniors during the pandemic.
“Due to VAS’s failure to substantiate the work performed under the Contract, the County is requiring full reimbursement,” states one of the county’s letters, all of which are dated July 26.
“Payment is due within 30 days, but no later than Monday, August 26, 2024,” it added. An address was then listed for sending the payment.
Additionally, the county is demanding reimbursement of another $1 million Do gave to a different group, Hand to Hand Relief Organization. A significant portion of that money was routed to VAS, according to county spokespeople and a financial ledger reviewed by LAist.
Messages for comment were not returned by Supervisor Do, his daughter Rhiannon Do, Viet America Society leader Peter Pham, or the group’s attorney, Sterling Scott Winchell.
Supervisor Do has declined multiple interview requests since LAist began investigating the contracts late last year. He has told other outlets that LAist’s reporting had errors but has not provided evidence of any errors or requested any corrections.
On July 3, Winchell told LAist that the audit was “almost done” and would take just “a few” more days. He said the meals were provided, but that the nonprofit had to create documents to show the auditors what happened with the money.
“The issue has been they haven’t kept the normal accounting for what they’ve done,” he said at the time. “So they’ve had to basically create the…documentation in the form that an accountant would want to watch and see for an audit.”
Hand to Hand’s leader, Thanh Huong Nguyen, also did not return messages for comment. County officials wrote that Hand to Hand had failed to respond at all to the county’s document demands over the past few months to show what happened with the money.
‘Red flags’
Eric Sussman, a UCLA accounting professor, after LAist read him the county’s letters to VAS, called the findings full of “red flags.”
“At best, it reflects extraordinarily sloppy record keeping, insufficient policies and procedures at the nonprofit to comply with underlying standards, prevent misstatements of financial reporting and so forth,” Sussman said.
“I don’t think it would shock this accounting expert, or any other accounting experts, that there may be some at best, negligence, at worst, fraud.”
Do didn’t disclose daughter’s role
The earmarking of the millions for meal funding was first brought to light by an LAist investigation into Do’s awarding of contracts to VAS without disclosing his family connection. He directed most of the $13.5 million identified by LAist using a secretive process where contracts do not appear on public meeting agendas.
In emails to LAist, Rhiannon Do has denied serving as an officer or having any role in the meal funding at issue or the financial side of the organization. But she has not answered requests to explain public records that contradict her claims. Those records include a contract she signed as group’s president, and meeting minutes showing her as an officer and director.
The bill inspired by LAist’s investigation was approved unanimously by the state Senate and now working its way through the Assembly. It would make it illegal for state and local officials to knowingly award contracts that involve their adult children. A news conference about it was held Friday.
Details of the missed audit
The county’s demand for full repayment of $2.2 million covered by two contracts comes after VAS failed for years to meet audit requirements under both the county contract and federal law.
After pressure from O.C. officials, the group did eventually hire auditors in April, and told the county the audit would be finished by June 30, according to emails and the county letters.
That deadline also passed with no finished audit. And according to the letters, the group’s story changed.
Leading up to the June 30 deadline, the nonprofit assured the county it was providing the documents auditors would need to finish their work, according to the county letters and emails reviewed by LAist.
But after the deadline passed, VAS acknowledged for the first time that the auditors couldn’t finish their work because VAS “had failed to provide significant amounts of information,” the county letters state.
At a meeting last week, the auditors told the county they were planning to officially find that VAS failed to properly track what it did with county dollars and had “problematic” accounting of how many meals it was providing.
The next day, VAS fired the auditors, according to the county letters.
That makes it hard to know whether the group actually did what it was paid to do, the county wrote.
“VAS’s decision to terminate the auditor after receiving the negative information undermined the County’s efforts to determine the extent to which VAS performed,” states one of the letters.
[Read the county’s letters demanding repayment from Viet America Society, and to read the letter to Hand to Hand Relief Organization.]
‘Unexplained transactions’ and ‘questionable costs’
In its letters last week, the county raised concerns about a series of financial transactions that “VAS has refused to provide explanations or supporting documentation for.”
These “unexplained transactions” raise “concerns of potential commingling of funds and questionable costs,” the county wrote.
Among them:
- $18,000 paid to Rhiannon Do
- $200,000 paid to Behavioral Health Solutions, a private mental health company whose officers were listed as Rhiannon Do and two other VAS leaders
- Over $480,000 in “Food Supply” expenses
- $1.2 million in revenue listed as coming from a company called Aloha Financial Investment. Public records show it’s been registered to the same house and office suite as VAS, and has shared two of the same leaders.
When LAist previously asked VAS’ attorney about some of these transactions, he said the answers would come in the audit. That audit has since been canceled by VAS.
The attorney, Winchell, also represented Aloha Financial Investment last year, according to court records. He was Do’s appointee to the county ethics commission from 2018 to 2023.
County officials in the letters also reported discrepancies in records VAS provided about how many meals were being served.
“The credibility of the reports submitted are questionable,” the county wrote.
VAS originally reported serving 20,000 meals per month, but “later revised” it to 10,000 per month — without changing the number of people it claimed to be serving each week, according to the county letters.
The group also did not document when people stopped or started receiving meals, the letters state.
Additionally, the county says it found “inconsistencies” in VAS’ list of meal recipients, including people listed more than once.
And when the county reviewed hundreds of records of people VAS said had received meals, only 16% of people marked on applications for meals could be verified as being on the group’s list of who received meals.
Catch up on the investigation
In November 2023, LAist began investigating how millions in public taxpayer dollars were spent. In total, LAist has uncovered over $13 million in public money that went to a little-known nonprofit that records state was led on and off by Rhiannon Do, the now 22-year-old daughter of O.C. Supervisor Andrew Do. Most of that money was directed to the group by Supervisor Do outside of the public’s view and never appeared on public meeting agendas. He did not publicly disclose his family ties.
Much of the known funding came from federal coronavirus relief money.
- Read the story that launched the investigation here.
- Since we started reporting, we’ve also uncovered the group was two years overdue in completing a required audit into whether the meal funds were spent appropriately.
- And we found the amount of taxpayer money directed to the nonprofit was much larger than initially known. It totals at least $13.5 million in county funding — tallied from government records obtained and published by LAist.
- After our reporting, O.C. officials wrote demand letters to the nonprofit saying millions in funding were unaccounted for. They warned it could be forced to repay the funds.
- And, we found the nonprofit missed a deadline set by county officials to provide proof about how funding for meals were spent.
How to watchdog local government
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Your city council, board of supervisors, school board and more all hold public meetings that anybody can attend. These are times you can talk to your elected officials directly and hear about the policies they’re voting on that affect your community.
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