An Orange County businessperson, who is among four people accused in a civil lawsuit filed by county officials accusing them of plundering public funds, played a role in the million-dollar home purchase last year by O.C. Supervisor Andrew Do’s then 22-year-old daughter, according to escrow and land deed records reviewed by LAist.
Federal agents searched Rhiannon Do’s home in unincorporated Tustin last month — as well as the businessperson’s home and a nearby house owned by Supervisor Do and his wife, O.C. Superior Court Judge Cheri Pham.
Those searches came a few days after the county filed a lawsuit alleging the businessperson, Thu Thao Thi Vu, conspired with the supervisor’s daughter Rhiannon Do and others to embezzle millions of taxpayer dollars meant to feed needy seniors.
Those public funds were directed by Supervisor Do to Viet America Society (VAS), a nonprofit that numerous public records show his daughter Rhiannon Do helped lead. LAist has uncovered more than $13 million directed by Supervisor Do to VAS.
The nonprofit’s attorney has denied the allegations. Rhiannon Do’s attorney, Dave Wiechert, told LAist Thursday that he was getting ready for a court appearance and would not have time to comment. VAS’ attorney, Mark Rosen, did not respond to a phone call and text message requesting comment.
In the suit, the county alleges the nonprofit’s leaders “brazenly plundered” the meal funds to instead buy homes for themselves, including the one Rhiannon Do purchased in unincorporated Tustin. And the county alleges much of the money was routed through Vu’s company, Aloha Financial Investment, to “conceal their fraud and hide assets.”
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The grant deed’s reference to businessperson Thu Thao Thi Vu was discussed in the county lawsuit last month, however this is the first time the escrow documents have been reported publicly. The documents are not in publicly-accessible records. LAist obtained copies from the home’s seller.
LAist obtained and analyzed public records that showed most of the $3.2 million in meal money that the county paid VAS in 2021 and 2022 was routed to Perfume River, a restaurant in Westminster owned by Aloha.
Since early April, LAist has made multiple inquiries with county officials about that flow of meal money. County officials said they could not explain what the money was used for because they were waiting on long-overdue audits and financial records from VAS. In July, county officials made a formal demand for money to be returned and called the payments to Perfume River “questionable and unexplained.”
Vu’s connection to Rhiannon Do’s purchase of the $1.035 million home is not clear. In the official record of the home’s sale filed with the county, the county recorder is instructed to send a copy of the grant deed to Vu. Real estate experts consulted by LAist said people listed in those instructions typically are involved in the transaction in some way.
What the records show
Vu has not responded to multiple requests for comment from LAist. In April, Rhiannon Do told LAist that Vu’s only involvement in the sale was to refer the home to her after deciding not to buy it herself. Escrow records, recently obtained by LAist from the seller, and interviews with people involved in the sale, differ from Rhiannon Do’s account.
An amendment to the purchase agreement, signed by Rhiannon Do and Vu on July 3, 2023, adds Vu as a co-buyer of the home. That record notes that it was adding Vu as a buyer to the original agreement executed on June 22, 2023.
Vu is removed as a co-buyer in another amendment on July 11, 2023, signed by Rhiannon Do.
Then, on July 25, 2023, Vu’s home address in Fountain Valley is listed in the seller’s estimated closing statement as the address of the home buyer, Rhiannon Do.
Vu’s Fountain Valley home, which public records show VAS’ president Peter Pham has used as the address for his businesses, was among at least five locations connected to VAS leaders that were searched by federal agents on Aug. 22.
To purchase the Tustin house, Rhiannon Do took out a $621,000 mortgage, according to a public mortgage record called a deed of trust. The gap between that amount and the purchase price suggests her down payment totaled $414,000.
The mortgage was taken out solely in Rhiannon Do’s name, for 30 years at a fixed rate, according to the public mortgage document. The interest rate was not disclosed.
The escrow documents are not in publicly-accessible records. LAist obtained copies from the home’s seller, Valerie Kemp. She said she shared the documents after learning of LAist’s investigation and the county’s fraud allegations tied to the purchase of several homes, including the one she sold Rhiannon Do.
That first deposit for the purchase — about $31,000 — lists both Vu and Rhiannon Do as the buyers, while stating the funds were from Rhiannon Do. That’s a wire transfer to the escrow company documented in a receipt dated July 7, 2023.
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State incorporation and county contract records show Thu Thao Thi Vu as the primary agent for Aloha Financial Investment. Aloha owns the restaurant that Viet America Society gave a large portion of federal pandemic relief money it was awarded from the county. That money is among the funds Orange County officials allege was embezzled by VAS leaders for private gain, including home purchases.
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- Aloha owns the Perfume River restaurant in Westminster that VAS paid $1.7 million of the $3.2 million of the county meal money it received in 2021 and 2022, according to an LAist review of VAS’ financial ledgers the group submitted to the county. The payments are labeled as “Food Supplies,” and no further detail is given in the ledgers. County officials in late July issued letters finding that VAS has refused to explain those payments.
- Public records also show VAS founder Peter Pham registered the nonprofit and multiple businesses at Vu’s home.
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Perfume River also was among the locations searched by federal agents last month.
More on Thu Thao Thi Vu
State incorporation and county contract records show Thu Thao Thi Vu as the primary agent for Aloha Financial Investment. Aloha owns the restaurant that Viet America Society gave a large portion of federal pandemic relief money it was awarded from the county. That money is among the funds Orange County officials allege was embezzled by VAS leaders for private gain, including home purchases.
- Aloha owns the Perfume River restaurant in Westminster that VAS paid $1.7 million of the $3.2 million of the county meal money it received in 2021 and 2022, according to an LAist review of VAS’ financial ledgers the group submitted to the county. The payments are labeled as “Food Supplies,” and no further detail is given in the ledgers. County officials in late July issued letters finding that VAS has refused to explain those payments.
- Public records also show VAS founder Peter Pham registered the nonprofit and multiple businesses at Vu’s home.
Perfume River also was among the locations searched by federal agents last month.
Another link between Aloha and Rhiannon’s home purchase
Email records, which LAist obtained this month from the city of Santa Ana through a public records request, show another connection between Vu’s company and Rhiannon Do’s home purchase.
Those emails discuss a property Aloha purchased on 17th Street in Santa Ana last year. The county alleges in its lawsuit it was purchased using illegally diverted taxpayer money.
The emails show that at the same time the purchase of Rhiannon Do’s home was moving forward, her real estate agent was contacting Santa Ana city officials on behalf of Aloha, the company led by Vu. The agent, in the emails, described Vu and Peter Pham as the owners of the 17th Street property. Official property records show the company, Aloha, as the owner.
Reached by phone a month ago, the agent — Phillip Vu Nguyen of HPT Realty & Finance — said he would look into LAist’s questions about Vu’s role in Rhiannon Do’s home purchase. He has not responded to multiple follow up calls and texts for comment.
The down payment and mortgage
Rhiannon Do is a third-year law student at UC Irvine. At the time that she purchased the home in late July 2023, her resume shows her interning that summer at a law firm and working as president of Warner Wellness Center, the mental health arm of VAS.
LAist researched the average interest rate at the time Rhiannon Do obtained the 30-year mortgage on the Tustin house. At that rate, the mortgage payment, property taxes and insurance would come out to about $5,000, according to a mortgage calculator and the tax rate for the property. A real estate expert said LAist used the correct approach to estimating the home’s monthly cost at that interest rate.
Her lender — Emet Mortgage — requires borrowers to earn about twice as much in monthly income as the monthly cost of the mortgage, property taxes and insurance, according to its website. That type of requirement is standard for American home loans, under federal rules that govern most U.S. mortgages.
Billing records obtained by LAist show that during the month Rhiannon Do bought the house, VAS charged the county for 173 hours of Rhiannon Do’s time on a mental health contract, which averages around 40 hours per week. That month, VAS paid her $4,615 before taxes, according to county records.
That accounts for less than half the earnings that appear to have been required by the income requirements listed on her lender’s website for that size mortgage at the time she obtained it.
Her work for VAS was the only job she cited to LAist when asked how she afforded the home, besides the summer internship.
Rhiannon Do has not responded to LAist’s follow-up questions asking how she qualified for the mortgage or afforded to purchase and maintain the monthly mortgage costs.
Details of Rhiannon Do’s response to LAist
On April 1, LAist sent Rhiannon Do an email asking a series of questions:
- Why was $400,000 in county meals money apparently routed through VAS to a mental health business she was an officer of?
- How did she qualify for the mortgage?
- Why was Vu’s name on the grant deed?
- And how much of the home purchase, if any, was financed by the taxpayer money her father sent VAS?
She did not answer those questions, and wrote back calling them part of a “false narrative.”
LAist asked again.
On April 4, she replied saying she didn’t know why Vu’s name was on the deed, but that Vu referred her to the home after deciding not to buy it.
“Ms. Vu found the house first. She dealt with the listing agent until she decided not to buy the house and referred it to me,” she wrote. “I don't know why Ms. Vu's name was included to receive a copy even though I was clearly listed as the sole buyer in the body of the Grant Deed, other than the fact that the Grant Deed contained many mistakes.”
She then gave examples of the other mistakes she referred to.
“For example, the Grant Deed misidentified the property as not being in the City of Tustin, and it listed Ms. Vu’s address as the address of the house I was purchasing where Ms. Vu did not and does not reside,” she wrote.
An LAist review found otherwise: The grant deed correctly noted the home is in an unincorporated area. That’s according to official county maps. And the deed did not state Vu’s address as the home Rhiannon Do was purchasing.
[Read all of Rhiannon’s email responses to LAist.]
What the seller and seller’s agent say about the transaction
The listing agent says Rhiannon’s account is not accurate.
“I never spoke with [Vu], and I never dealt with her,” said Michelle Vaughn, who represented the sellers in the transaction and told LAist she was the only listing agent.
Vaughn said at the time of the transaction, she had no idea Rhiannon Do was the daughter of Supervisor Do and Cheri Pham, a high-ranking O.C. Superior Court judge.
Valerie Kemp — along with her husband — sold the home to Rhiannon Do. Kemp also told LAist that at the time of the sale, she didn’t know at the time who Rhiannon Do’s parents were.
Kemp told LAist she and her husband had moved out of state before selling the home, and didn’t interact directly with the buyer.
Nothing during the sale process raised any concerns, Kemp added.
Kemp said she was shocked and angry when she learned of Orange County’s corruption allegations that now include the home.
“I appreciate whoever looked at this and saw it and said this needs to be looked into,” she said.
Real estate experts on the transaction
Real estate expert Robert S. Griswold told LAist the home’s recorded mortgage and Rhiannon Do’s known income don’t add up.
“There’s plenty of sad stories about people paying 50 or 60% of their income for housing,” said Griswold, the co-author of Home Buying Kit for Dummies and Real Estate Investing for Dummies. “But not 112%. It doesn’t work.”
He and another real estate expert said the place Vu is listed on the grant deed — where there’s instructions to mail a copy to her and Rhiannon Do after it’s recorded — indicates some connection between people listed there and a property transaction.
What’s next?
Rhiannon Do’s father, Supervisor Do, has faced increasing calls to resign from his elected position. That includes calls from two of his four colleagues on the Board of Supervisors and six of the seven city council members in Huntington Beach, the largest city in his district. He’s given no public indication he’s considering doing so.
He has stopped attending county supervisor meetings.
His four fellow supervisors unanimously voted earlier this month to strip Supervisor Do of all his committee assignments, including to the high-profile governing board of the Orange County Transportation Authority.
This week, all four of his colleagues voted to publicly condemn Supervisor Do with a censure. It cites “reckless judgment and favoritism he has demonstrated in directing millions of dollars” to “organizations with no proven track record,” while not disclosing his family ties. California law at the time did not require disclosure when elected officials award taxpayer money to their adult children.
That will be changing. In response to LAist’s coverage of Supervisor Do’s awarding of funds, new conflict of interest laws were approved unanimously by the state Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom.
The county’s civil fraud lawsuit against Rhiannon Do and other VAS leaders is in early stages, and was transferred to San Diego County Superior Court. A search of the court’s website does not return any responses to the complaint from defendants.
Meanwhile, federal authorities have frozen the bank accounts for VAS, Peter Pham and Perfume River, according to VAS’ attorney.
The investigating agencies — the FBI, the IRS, and the Orange County District Attorney’s Office — have declined to discuss next steps or details of their investigation, with the federal prosecutors office citing a court-ordered seal on the case.
Catch up on the investigation
In November 2023, LAist began investigating how millions in public taxpayer dollars were spent. In total, LAist has uncovered public records showing more than $13 million in public money that was approved to a little-known nonprofit that records state was led on and off by Rhiannon 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 LAist 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 LAist 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 the nonprofit that it could be forced to repay the funds.
- And, LAist found the nonprofit missed a deadline set by county officials to provide proof about how funding for meals were spent.
- On Aug. 2, LAist reported O.C. officials were demanding the refund of more than $3 million in public funds awarded by Do to VAS and another nonprofit, Hand to Hand.
- Six days later, LAist reported Orange County officials had expanded demands for refunds of millions in tax dollars from the nonprofits and threatened legal action.
- On Aug. 15, LAist reported O.C. officials sued VAS and its key officers and associated businesses, including Rhiannon Do. The lawsuit alleges that county money was illegally used to purchase five homes and was converted into cash through ATM transactions.
- Then, on Aug. 19, LAist reported O.C. officials had announced a second lawsuit against Hand to Hand and its CEO to recover millions of taxpayer dollars that were directed by Supervisor Do.
- LAist broke the news on Aug. 22 that federal agents were searching Rhiannon Do's home in Tustin. Later that day, Supervisor Do's home, and other properties, were also raided.
How to watchdog local government
One of the best things you can do to hold officials accountable is pay attention.
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.
- Read tips on how to get involved.
- The next scheduled board meeting is Tuesday, Oct. 8. You can check out the O.C. Board of Supervisors full calendar here.
- Learn how to submit a public comment to the O.C. Board of Supervisors.
LAist Senior Reporter Ted Rohrlich contributed to this story.
Top photo caption and credit: Law enforcement searched the Tustin home of O.C. Supervisor Andrew Do's 23 year-old daughter Rhiannon Do, on Aug. 22. (Jason Armond Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
