OAKLAND — Mayor Sheng Thao is expected to soon cast the tie-breaking vote on a lucrative contract with a company whose CEO spent years doing business with a now-central figure in the FBI’s ongoing public corruption probe.
A critical vector in the investigation appears to be Juarez, a two-time City Council candidate and longtime political operative who has repeatedly come under scrutiny for failed business deals and mounting debts., court investigative records show. The Duong family, which has a city contract to pick up the city’s curbside recycling, claims Juarez failed to deliver dozens of housing units – each made of revamped shipping containers – that he allegedly promised the family.
Also in 2017, one of Juarez’s companies sold an East Oakland commercial building off 75th Avenue to Chretien for $845,000. The deal proved lucrative for Juarez’s outfit, which had just bought the metal-sided warehouse less than two months earlier for roughly half that price. Chretien’s ABC Security Service has been a politically powerful firm, with Chretien donating thousands to politicians when earning contracts in the 1990s and early 2000s with the city, the Port of Oakland and its airport, according to
Mayor Sheng Thao takes part in a press conference at the Oakland Coliseum on Monday, Aug. 12, 2024, in Oakland, Calif.