Two Orange County supervisors are calling on the OC District Attorney’s Office, the California Attorney General’s Office and the United States Treasury Department to investigate Viet America Society, a nonprofit that has failed to provide documentation for how it spent millions of dollars from Supervisor Andrew Do’s First District discretionary funds meant for a senior nutrition program.
The county has demanded the return of about $4.2 million in funds by Aug. 26 and County Counsel Leon Page, in an Aug. 7 letter, said his office would recommend litigation to claw back the funding if necessary.
The county has made a similar repayment demand of the Hand to Hand Relief Organization for $3 million.
“Today, we join to support and encourage county counsel’s aggressive pursuit to recover the taxpayer dollars unaccounted for by VAS, H2H, and their principals through every avenue permissible under the law,” Fifth District Supervisor Katrina Foley and Second District Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento said in a joint statement released Wednesday morning. “In light of the obvious delay tactics, clear obstruction, and dismissive response from counsel for VAS and H2H, we have no confidence that these organizations will ever produce proof of lawful expenditures or voluntarily return taxpayer funds.”
Viet America Society received more than $10 million in public funds, mostly through Do’s discretionary funds, to provide a nutrition gap program since 2020. The funding comes from COVID relief allocations to the county. Do has been criticized for not publicly disclosing that his daughter, Rhiannon Do, held revolving leadership roles at the nonprofit, though that is not a violation of county policy or state law.
Whether the investigations are criminal or civil, and if they also include an investigation into Do’s office, Foley said is up to the investigative body.
“We want all the contracts investigated and audited period. Whatever that entails. It should be a full scope investigation because we don’t want any taint on the county from this,” Foley said. “We need to take it to the next level. And the next level is getting the DA, the state and the federal investigators involved and auditors involved.”
A day after Viet America Society’s lawyer Sterling Scott Winchell 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.
Foley said following the Register’s reporting of the rebuke from the group’s lawyer, the county decided to rethink its approach with Viet America Society.
“I think Supervisor Sarmiento and I have are committed to not having the county taxpayers bear the burden of improper handling of these funds,” Foley said. “We are the taxpayers’ watchdog. It is our duty to make sure that these funds are brought back into the county coffers and not misused.”
Winchell declined to comment in a phone call Wednesday and said he is no longer representing Viet America Society as of Aug. 13. He said it was a mutual separation.
The county’s demands for a refund came after multiple blown deadlines to complete a single audit — required because of the involvement of federal funds — showing the group properly spent the money to feed shuttered seniors during the pandemic.
The two groups have until Aug. 26 to provide the documentation and pay back the funds, officials said. Foley and Sarmiento also said in their statement they oppose any more deadline extensions.
Foley said all county contracts financed by the COVID relief funds should be audited to make sure everything is in compliance and there are no concerns about failure by the county.
“We want to restore the public trust, and we think that’s one of the best ways to do so, to make sure that we have a clean audit of all of our county contracts that were American Rescue Plan funded,” Foley said.
Do could be reached immediately for comment, nor could other known contacts for Viet America Society or Hand to Hand.
This is a developing story, please check back for updates.
Originally Published: August 14, 2024 at 11:23 a.m.
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Publish date : 2024-08-14 07:23:00
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