Anonymous ID: 72fce6 July 22, 2026, 12:15 p.m. No.24855880   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>5881 >>5898

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California has gotta be one of the most corrupt, sleazy places in the US, and Mia Bonta, Rob Bonta (CA Attorney General) is right at the top of the pile of corruption. This is a long article that reads like a novel, and this is only an excerpt. It includes info on the Nick Shirley Act that is designed to prevent journalists from reporting on corruption in CA.

 

Attorney General Rob Bonta’s wife, Mia, is pushing a journalism chill bill to stop corruption reports like the one I wrote about them

 

Apr 2026 The Voice of San Francisco (excerpts)

 

In 2021, Mia Bonta ran for her husband’s former seat as a member of the California State Assembly from the 18th district and won. Her campaign office was located at 1241 High Street in Oakland — which also happens to be the address of Viridis Fuels. As of Oct. 25, 2019, Trademarkia listed the company as “dead/cancelled,” but in 2014, Viridis president Juarez sent a letter from the 1241 High Street address to Kristina Duong of California Waste Solutions. “Viridis Fuels is pleased to acknowledge our proposed support of California Waste Solutions’ expansion and operations. We appreciate the opportunity to work with your team as your reputation is exemplary,” Juarez writes, going on to describe a partnership that will include use of a six-acre parcel in the North Gateway Area of the former Army Base. California’s involvement in Viridis grew from that $3.4 million grant pushed by Rob Bonta to $38 million in bond financing.

 

When Juarez ran for the Alameda Democratic Central Committee, Mia Bonta endorsed him, presumably from the office on High Street they shared. In turn, Juarez made over $2,500 worth of donations to her campaign. Other donors included Sheng Thao, David Duong, and Mon Kil Quan. Investigators allege that Quan was one of the straw donors who illegally made contributions on Andy Duong’s behalf. According to corporate filings, Quan was the owner of Music Cafe, a downtown Oakland restaurant and karaoke lounge. While Quan was the listed owner, investigators believe Andy Duong was the actual proprietor.

When Juarez ran for the Alameda Democratic Central Committee, Mia Bonta endorsed him, presumably from the office on High Street they shared. In turn, Juarez made over $2,500 worth of donations to her campaign. Other donors included Sheng Thao, David Duong, and Mon Kil Quan. Investigators allege that Quan was one of the straw donors who illegally made contributions on Andy Duong’s behalf. According to corporate filings, Quan was the owner of Music Cafe, a downtown Oakland restaurant and karaoke lounge. While Quan was the listed owner, investigators believe Andy Duong was the actual proprietor.

 

After a 2018 Alcoholic Beverage Control raid, Music Cafe lost its liquor license. Two women who allegedly sold drugs and agreed to provide sex to undercover agents were prosecuted by the Alameda district attorney’s office. In a 208-page file, four undercover agents describe making multiple late-night visits to the cafe in 2018, where they were able to obtain ketamine and ecstasy from the workers. Approximately 20 female “companions” were brought into their karaoke room for them to pick from, where agents said they paid $100 each for the women to join them. During the raid, cash and narcotics were also confiscated. Another alleged straw donor, Music Cafe manager Charlie Ngo, was one of three people arrested in 2018. An employee originally facing 11 counts including felony human trafficking, sale and possession of narcotics, and pimping and pandering, pleaded no contest to conspiracy to commit a crime.

Anonymous ID: 72fce6 July 22, 2026, 12:16 p.m. No.24855881   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>5898

>>24855880

 

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In May 2024, Juarez sent Rob Bonta an ominous letter warning that Andy Duong possessed damning surveillance video footage of him. “I hold you in high regard for your commitment to justice and integrity, which is why I feel compelled to bring this issue to your attention,” Juarez writes. “It is also important that you know that Andy Duong in particular has a recording of you in a compromising situation and that he routinely engages in entertaining elected and other officials to extract recordings without their knowledge for later use in blackmail circumstances.” Juarez said release of the recordings could cause “public embarrassment at the least” or expose “illicit activities, including the use of drugs.”

 

In his East Bay Insiders newsletter, Steve Tavares says East Bay political circles “have long traded rumors about Andy Duong allegedly capturing public officials in embarrassing situations.” Tavares also notes that Juarez dropped broader allegations in the letter, accusing the Duong family of “money laundering, illegal political donations, falsification of contracts, and exploitation of straw donors,” and even “facilitating prostitution for elected officials, including minors.”

 

Juarez also told Bonta he feared for his life. “I do feel at this point that I am subject to possible murder attempts as this was told to me by Andy Duong,” he wrote. The May 9 letter to Bonta was sent exactly one month before Juarez exchanged gunfire with assailants in front of his home.

 

In November 2025, Bonta acknowledged $468,000 from his 2026 reelection campaign went to the law firm Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati — the most money ever spent on legal help by any candidate running for statewide office in California. Dan Newman, Bonta’s senior adviser, confirmed to KCRA 3 reporter Ashley Zavala that the payments were for legal advice in the East Bay bribery investigation that involves Oakland’s ex-mayor Sheng Thao and the Duong family.

 

Not only are the Bontas linked to Andy Duong and Mario Juarez, but they’re also associated with a failed fuel company run by Juarez and a karaoke bar that was busted for human trafficking and narcotics sales where Duong allegedly laundered campaign funds and “entertained” politicos. Juarez sent a letter to Rob Bonta intimating that Duong had a “compromising video” of him, though Bonta denies the video exists. Five months after the letter, Bonta acknowledged spending half a million dollars for “legal advice” tied to the Duong and Thao investigation.

 

While the Oakland scandal is salacious, it’s far from the first time the Bontas have drawn criticism for what I call “quiet corruption” — the more mundane but equally bad variety. In 2023, Mia Bonta agreed to chair a budget subcommittee overseeing the California Department of Justice, which is led by her husband.

The Los Angeles Daily News also reported that, as an assemblyman, Rob Bonta made use of the power to “behest” contributions from companies with business before the state. After Mia Bonta founded a nonprofit called Literacy Lab in 2014, her husband helped her fund it by “encouraging” Pacific Gas & Electric to donate $3,500 in 2015 and another $6,500 in 2016. CalMatters also reported that Rob Bonta created the Bonta California Progress Foundation in 2017, “behested” $75,000 from “interest groups that lobby him at the Capitol,” and in 2018 donated $25,000 to his wife’s nonprofit. Literacy Lab’s IRS tax return for 2018 shows that Mia Bonta’s compensation that year was $142,866.

 

Between 2013 and 2020, then-Assemblyman Rob Bonta “behested” more than $5.8 million from unions, banks, health care companies, tech giants, and others for various causes near and dear to his family’s heart.

 

(…and moar.)

 

https://thevoicesf.org/attorney-general-rob-bontas-wife-mia-is-pushing-a-journalism-chill-bill-to-stop-corruption-reports-like-the-one-i-wrote-about-them/