OAKLAND — Mayor Sheng Thao is predicted to soon forged the deciding vote on a lucrative contract with an organization whose CEO did business for years with an individual now at the middle of the FBI's ongoing investigation into public corruption.
Next month, Thao could have to make a decision alone the fate of an $8 million contract extension with ABC Security Service Inc., which provides security at City Hall and other city buildings. The decision is hers for the reason that City Council vote over the summer led to a rare tie.
The impending decision could potentially give Thao the green light for a multimillion-dollar cope with an organization owned by Ana Chretien, a renowned East Bay businesswoman who already has extensive business dealings with Mario Juarez.
Real estate transactions involving one in all Chrétien's firms and Juarez – a fixture within the FBI investigation – recently caught the eye of local authorities as a part of an ongoing investigation that’s independent of the federal probe, in line with court documents.
The FBI and county authorities' investigation is ongoing, but no charges have been filed against anyone.
The federal investigation – and a related grand jury probe – became public when agents raided Thao's Oakland Hills home on June 20, setting off a political firestorm that has put her administration in jeopardy just months before a scheduled recall election this November.
A key think about the investigation appears to be Juarez, a two-time candidate for city council and longtime political operative who has been repeatedly targeted for failed business deals and mounting debts.
According to court investigative records, the Alameda County District Attorney's Office is investigating allegations that Juarez defrauded the influential Duong family out of a $1 million investment in a failed housing project called Evolutionary Homes. The Duong family, which has a contract with the town to select up the town's curbside recycling, claims Juarez didn’t deliver dozens of housing units – all made out of refurbished shipping containers – that he allegedly promised the family.
The dispute led to competing claims that each side attacked one another during a heated confrontation on the Oakland Harbor Housing Authority's offices on May 3. Less than a month later, Juarez claimed he was the goal of an assassination attempt when gunmen shot at him outside his East Oakland home — in line with police records, the shooting was “retaliation” for Juarez's involvement in a criminal investigation.
Public records show that a few of Chretien's dealings with Juarez were often conducted through Tidewater Group LLC, a lesser-known real estate company she founded 18 years ago and that Juarez allegedly represented as recently as 2021, court records show.
In February 2017, Tidewater bought a industrial property from one in all Juarez's firms for about $2.7 million, but then sold it back to a different of Juarez's firms five years later for a much higher price – $4.3 million – in line with county records.
The property, positioned near High and E. twelfth streets in East Oakland, was at the middle of several potentially fraudulent loans to Juarez which might be the topic of a current investigation by the Alameda County District Attorney's Office's Real Estate Fraud Unit. Chretian was not involved in those loans.
Also in 2017, one in all Juarez's firms sold a industrial constructing in East Oakland near seventy fifth Avenue to Chretien for $845,000. The deal proved lucrative for Juarez's company, which had bought the metal-clad warehouse lower than two months earlier for about half that price.
In one other real estate deal, an organization organized by Juarez bought a vacant lot for $50,500 in March 2019 that bordered a residential property owned by Chretien, state and county records show. Five months later, Chretien was listed as CEO of the corporate, Ciudad Real LLC, and the business and mailing addresses modified from Juarez's office to those of Chretien's security company and the Tidewater Group, records show.
About a yr later, in line with county records, Chretien began transferring the property, which lies along the Napa River, into her name.
Chretien declined several interview requests from this news organization. She officially resigned as an agent of the Tidewater Group in 2022, state records show. Juarez's attorney declined to comment and messages sent to Thao's office weren’t immediately returned.
Chretien's ABC Security Service was a politically influential company. In the Nineties and early 2000s, Chretien donated hundreds to politicians as he secured contracts with the town, the Port of Oakland and its airport. media Reports.
The company's history raised eyebrows amongst many, including the town auditor in 2011, but ABC was in a position to win the town's security contract in 2018. Since then, the corporate has helped monitor city hall, city libraries, and senior and recreation centers.
ABC has worked through similar extensions lately after plans to approve a brand new security contractor fell through as a result of changing security needs and a desire to attend for a brand new, everlasting city manager to take over the job. The most up-to-date extension expired on June 30, though the corporate's security guards still patrol city buildings.
A council vote in July to increase the contract through mid-2025 led to odd fashion, with council members Nikki Fortunado Bas, Noel Gallo, Kevin Jenkins and Dan Kalb voting in favor while Rebecca Kaplan, Janani Ramachandran and Treva Reid were either excused or absent from the vote. Council member Carroll Fife abstained, so Thao needed to forged his vote. Thao is predicted to vote through the first regular meeting in September when the council returns to session.
If approved, the contract would increase ABC's funding to just about $30 million because it took over the town's security services in 2018. It allows for a 20 percent monthly increase in the town's budgeted costs for security services, allowing the corporate to “cover necessary, unforeseen or emergency security services outside of basic services,” in line with a city report on the contract.
The city government plans to open the town's security services contract to bids from latest firms in the approaching months, before the beginning of the 2025-26 budget cycle.
The FBI has said little publicly since a series of raids on June 20 at addresses linked to Thao and the Duong family, which owns the city-contracted garbage recycling company California Waste Solutions. Thao has repeatedly insisted that they innocent and never a goal of the federal government.
Meanwhile, the district attorney's real estate fraud unit is investigating whether Juarez defaulted on a $250,000 loan to a outstanding Chinatown figure across the time he bought back the High Street property from Chrétien's Tidewater Group.
Local investigators suspect that Juarez used the High Street property as collateral for the loan – despite the fact that he had allegedly already used it as collateral for a $3 million loan from one other company called Balboa LLC. Juarez appears to have defaulted on that loan as well.
The High Street property was foreclosed on in early December 2022, with Balboa LLC filings showing it cost nearly $4 million.
Alameda County prosecutors have already charged Juarez in one other criminal case involving election mailings that Juarez allegedly orchestrated against Thao's political rivals in the ultimate days of the 2022 mayoral race.
Prosecutors say Juarez ordered the flyers from a family-owned mailing company in Oakland by writing checks for nearly $53,600 that later bounced. Investigators say Juarez had lower than $215 in his checking account on the time, court records show.
Juarez has since pleaded not guilty. His lawyer Ernie Castillo had previously described the fees brought by District Attorney Pamela Price as “politically motivated and regrettable.”
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