The nonprofit Viet America Society and some of its leadership, including the daughter of county Supervisor Andrew Do, “brazenly plundered” millions of dollars in COVID relief funds to buy properties and make lavish purchases, alleged a lawsuit filed Thursday by the county of Orange.
The suit accused the charity, CEO Peter Ahn Pham, Rhiannon Do and other associates of committing breach of contract, conspiracy and constructive fraud, among other complaints. The suit also noted some of its allegations are violations of federal law.
Starting in 2020, the county gave Viet America Society more than $10 million in federal COVID relief money, largely to provide meals to elderly and disabled people during the pandemic. About $1 million was for a Vietnam War memorial that was never built. Most of the money came from Supervisor Do’s First District discretionary fund.
Do has been publicly criticized for not disclosing that his daughter, Rhiannon Do, held revolving leadership roles at VAS, but that is not a violation of county policy or state law.
Andrew Do was not mentioned by name in the lawsuit.
It could be “incredibly difficult” for Do to deliberate on matters that come before him on the board, Second District Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento said, adding that “if the claims alleged in the complaints are true, Supervisor Do should consider stepping down.”
Andrew Do, Rhiannon Do and Peter Pham did not respond to requests for comment.
The county’s lawsuit alleged that instead of using the funding “to assist the county’s most vulnerable populations, defendant Viet America Society, and its officers and associates, brazenly plundered these funds for their own personal gain.”
“Defendants saw the opportunity, and conspired to embezzle pandemic relief funds by executing contracts that they never intended to perform, instead using the funding streams as their own personal banking accounts,” it said.
The lawsuit alleged six properties in Garden Grove, Buena Park, Santa Ana, Fountain Valley and Tustin were purchased between August 2021 and May 2024 with county funds.
Among the properties is a three-bedroom home in Tustin purchased for $1,035,000 by Rhiannon Do in July 2023. Real estate documents obtained by The Orange County Register show Rhiannon Do – whom a former VAS attorney previously said earned $18,000 in 2022 at VAS – obtained a $621,000 loan for the house as a single woman through EMET Mortgage in Brea. The down payment would have been $414,000 for the house on Candeda Place with wood floors and vaulted ceilings.
Viet America Society and its associates also made “voluminous, unaccounted for ATM withdrawals,” using the money for their personnel spending, the suit alleged.
Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said Thursday he could not comment on the suit. Supervisors Katrina Foley and Sarmiento this week called for local, state and federal law enforcement to investigate.
Viet America Society has missed multiple county deadlines to complete what is called a single audit — required because of the involvement of federal funds — to show the group properly spent the money to feed shuttered seniors during the pandemic.
Other defendants in the lawsuit are Viet America Society officer Dinh Mai, Aloha Financial Investment Inc. and Thu Thao Thi Vu. Aloha Financial does business as Perfume River Restaurant and Lounge in Westminster, which was contracted by Viet America Society to provide the county-funded meals. Vu is the chief officer of Aloha Financial.
Viet America Society’s lawyer Mark Rosen said he would comment Friday after reading the lawsuit. Calls to the listed number for the group went unanswered.
Viet America Society operated the alleged embezzlement scheme by transferring assets to Aloha Financial, which then moved the money to VAS “insiders,” the suit said.
A notation on the grant deed for the home purchased by Rhiannon Do asked that a copy be sent to Vu.
The suit also accused Viet America Society leader Pham of owning or being a part-owner of Perfume River, which submitted invoices to VAS totaling $208,000 for the vaguely described “food preparation and packages.”
Pham also is accused by the county of using public tax dollars to buy homes in Garden Grove and Buena Park, using part of the funds to also make improvements.
When ordered by the county to document the number of meals served by the charity, Viet America Society “provided inflated, facially unrealistic and fraudulent information to the county,” according to the lawsuit.
For instance, the charity claimed it served 20,000 meals per month, but revised that figure to 10,000 after being questioned by county officials.
In an Aug. 7 letter, the county demanded the return of about $4.2 million in funds by Aug. 26, and County Counsel Leon Page said his office would recommend litigation to claw back the funding if necessary.
In an interview with the Register on Thursday morning, prior to the filing of the lawsuit, Rosen said VAS had spent all the funds on providing services.
“Somebody thinks there’s a big bundle of money out there. The money was all spent to provide the actual services,” said Rosen, who sent a letter Monday to the county criticizing the county’s recent demands and actions against VAS. “The point I tried to make in my letter is that they did this during an emergency. They had to set up almost immediately, serving people who are not totally responsive to filling out forms and dealing with government officials, particularly during a pandemic.”
Rosen said the county’s demands for a refund smacked of a “political witch hunt.”
Foley said politics have played no part in the VAS conflict except for being the reason the nonprofit was given so many chances and deadline extensions to prove it used public funds appropriately.
“If anything, that is because of politics. Because there’s a connection to Supervisor Do, and we wanted to make sure that every opportunity was given for them to do the right thing,” Foley told The Orange County Register. “The political actor that seems to be the core focus of this is Supervisor Do and enriching his family members.”
Sarmiento said the allegations listed in the suit are “unsettling” and very serious.
“It appears that these funds that were intended for the benefit of seniors and vulnerable communities during the pandemic were not only not used for the intended purpose, but were fraudulently converted into real property acquisitions and improvements,” Sarmiento said. “That is about as egregious as you can get with these public funds. County residents deserve answers.”
“Their new counsel is trying to be critical of our request for this information, and it speaks of their, not just callousness, but the integrity of this auditing process that the county and the residents are entitled to,” Sarmiento added.
Foley said the allegations show “blatant deception and greed” by people looking to enrich themselves using public funds.
“The lawsuit filed by the county of Orange highlights rampant abuse of taxpayer funds to enrich well-connected insiders instead of feeding vulnerable seniors in the Vietnamese community or honoring our Vietnam War Veterans,” Foley said.
Attached to Rosen’s Aug. 12 letter was an audit report.
The audit of years 2021 and 2022 was concluded in January by Buu D. Nguyen, a certified public accountant who is also listed online as a Garden Grove tax preparer. Nguyen’s analysis reports Viet America Society spent none of the grant money on staff compensation in 2021 and $77,482 in 2022. Total spending for 2021 was $1.2 million and $1.8 million in 2022.
The analysis noted that in both years, Viet America Society was not reconciling its ledgers on a monthly basis, which would have reduced the risk of fraud or error and allowed the audits to be done in a timely manner. Because of the lack of reconciliation, the audit could not be started until December 2023.
Viet America Society officials attributed the problem to a staff shortage over a three-year period during the pandemic. The charity also operated until recently without a chief financial officer.
“This greatly impacted our ability to issue an opinion in a timely manner,” the audit said.
Foley said the pandemic and the staffing shortages did not affect any other organizations that received federal funds from the county the way that VAS is alleging.
The “alleged audit” and Rosen’s letter hold no weight in her eyes, she added.
The report also noted a flaw in the system because VAS did not have a process to ensure terminated employees were removed on a timely basis from accounting systems.
Auditors found eight questionable transactions in 2022, but they did not exceed $25,000. Additionally, Viet America Society did not have a process for submitting required documents and forms on time.
The auditors declined to list Viet America Society as “low risk.”
On Aug. 8, the day after a previous Viet America Society lawyer told The Orange County Register that the group had no intention of returning funds, saying the work had been done, Orange County officials upped the repayment demand from an original $2.2 million to the $4.2 million.
In its lawsuit, the county asked for damages to be proven in court, no less than $10.4 million.
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