Rob Bonta requested $3.4 million grant for Viridis Fuels, run by disgraced political operative Mario Juarez

As an assemblymember, Bonta received campaign contributions from Juarez. While running to replace her husband, Mia Bonta shared an office address with now-defunct fuel firm.

Rob and Mia Bonta celebrate Rob’s birthday with David Duong, president of VABA and California Waste Solutions.

A roster of leaders who remain dominant figures in California politics today embraced Jones publically. Jerry Brown, then and now governor of the state, approvingly visited the Peoples Temple, and Senator Dianne Feinstein, who ascended to the mayoralty upon Moscone’s assassination, joined the Board of Supervisors in honoring Jones. Willie Brown, longtime speaker of the California state assembly, a mayor of San Francisco, and the mentor of Senator Kamala Harris, was especially lavish in his praise of Jones, calling him “a combination of Martin Luther King, Jr., Angela Davis, Albert Einstein, and Chairman Mao.”

—  “Jim Jones, Made in San Francisco,” by Seth Barron, Nov. 15, 2018

People who didn’t grow up in the San Francisco Bay Area or didn’t follow the region’s politics may not remember the story of Jim Jones except for the horrors of Nov. 18, 1978, when nearly 1,000 men, women and children, most from the Bay Area, committed mass suicide in the jungle of Guyana. It was all at the direction of Peoples Temple leader Jones, after the murder of U.S. Congressman Leo Ryan, who was ambushed and assassinated as he left with a dozen or so rescued renouncers, in nearby Port Kaituma. Jones told his followers it was "revolutionary suicide" by way of ingesting a powdered drink mix made from Flavor Aid that was lethally laced with cyanide. The drink mix was misidentified in news reports as Kool-Aid, spawning the infamous phrase “Drinking the Kool-Aid,” used to describe those who strongly believe in and accept a deadly, deranged, or foolish ideology based solely on the overpowering coaxing of another person.

Just two weeks after the tragedy in Guyana, San Francisco’s mayor, George Moscone, and Supervisor Harvey Milk, the first openly gay non-incumbent politician elected to office in America, were shot and killed at City Hall by Dan White, a disgruntled supervisor who had quit his job and then wanted it back. As Seth Barron pointed out in his 2018 City Journal review of the book Cult City by Daniel Flynn, “The connection — sometimes tenuous, sometimes shocking — between these incidents has been brushed over by a society eager to sanctify its martyrs and forget its villains.”

Jones came from Depression-Era Indiana and was drawn to charismatic Christianity and radical politics from a young age. After moving his Peoples Temple to Northern California in the 1960s, Jones began leveraging his flock’s labor toward political gain, volunteering them for protests or electioneering on behalf of aspiring politicos. As Jones gained the respect of even seasoned officials, many even credited him for Moscone’s tight victory in the 1975 mayoral runoff, and he was appointed head of the San Francisco Housing Authority. Praised as a hero of social justice and a crusader for racial equality, Jones quickly became one of the most important figures in Democratic politics.

Among his advocates was fellow San Francisco newcomer Harvey Milk, a Goldwater Republican who became a Democrat and repeatedly ran for office as an outsider to the political machine. Milk attended services at Peoples Temple on numerous occasions and wrote gushing letters to Jones, with one reading, “Such greatness I have found in Jim Jones’s Peoples Temple.”

Milk wasn’t alone: then-governor Jerry Brown (who later became governor a second time), visited the Peoples Temple, and the late Senator Dianne Feinstein (who became mayor after Moscone’s assassination) joined the Board of Supervisors in honoring Jones. Longtime speaker of the California state assembly and former (and sort of current) mayor Willie Brown — the man who set the City Family in motion — once called Jones “a combination of Martin Luther King, Jr., Angela Davis, Albert Einstein, and Chairman Mao.”

California politics was shaped and forever changed by the influence of Jim Jones, but few lessons were learned. San Francisco, which sent former mayor Gavin Newsom to the Governor’s Mansion in Sacramento, and former District Attorney Kamala Harris (a protégé of Brown’s) to be the state’s attorney general, then a senator, and now vice president of the United States, continues to flounder under the burden of identity politics, while the Bay Area is unrecognizable to those who were born and raised here like me.

When Newsom was District 2 supervisor and wrote a column for the Marina Times, it was evident even then his aspirations were much larger than leading a 7x7 square foot city. Newsom was perpetually late turning in his column, and I once teased him that he couldn’t finish a job, to which he did that cocky side-to-side thing with his head, flashed his pearly whites, and laughed, albeit a bit uncomfortably. As governor — simply another steppingstone in his dream of becoming president — Newsom has made some questionable staffing decisions, like appointing Rob Bonta as attorney general, after Xaviar Becerra resigned to become Secretary of Health and Human Services, in 2021. Newsom has never shied away from his role as the king of identity politics, and Bonta checked the boxes, becoming the first Filipino-American to hold the office. He came out of the gate weak, standing in Newsom’s soft-on-crime corner as he performed whatever tasks his boss asked of him, and yet, because California voters rarely pay attention and often don’t vote, Bonta was elected to a full four-year term in 2022.

Bonta previously served as a member of the California State Assembly for the 18th district from 2012 to 2021 and as a member of the Alameda City Council from 2010 to 2012. As I wrote this past June for the Voice of San Francisco, when the FBI raided the home of Oakland mayor Sheng Thao, the offices of California Waste Solutions, and the homes of California Waste Solutions’ owners Andy Duong and his parents, David and Linda Duong, Andy Duong’s Instagram account, resplendent with selfies of him and some of the biggest names in California politics, came to light. While many of the photos appear to be taken at events, the ones of Bonta and his wife, now-District 18 Assemblywoman Mia Bonta, are far more personal. Duong, in the role of “public relations agent” for the family business, jetted off to the Philippines with Bonta, whom Duong calls “his brother” in one particularly cringy image of him huddled with the Bontas in a limousine. In addition to Warriors games, trips to exotic lands, and limo rides, Duong and his family shoveled cash to the current attorney general. Since last week’s column, Bonta (who fancies himself a contender for governor in 2026) has said he will return over $155,000 in campaign contributions received from the Duongs, including money Bonta took from the family’s businesses and their associates throughout his political career. Those associates, it turns out, are woven in a tangled web of pay-to-play politics that includes some familiar names, past and present.

In 2016, then-Assemblyman Bonta asked the California Energy Commission to award a $3.4 million grant to Viridis Fuels of Oakland. In April of that year, the Energy Commission approved the grant for a plant that would manufacture up to 20 million gallons per year of biodiesel fuel and 4 million gallons of glycerin.

On June 6, Viridis CEO Kathy Neal contributed $1,000 to Bonta’s re-election campaign, and her ex-husband, former Oakland mayor Elihu Harris, listed as chairman of Viridis’s advisers, contributed $250. The company’s president, Mario Juarez, had already contributed $500 to Bonta. If the name Mario Juarez sounds familiar, that’s likely because he’s a controversial longtime Oakland political operative with a history of financial troubles (more on that later) who was attacked in two separate incidents in May and June of this year, including once at 1211 Embarcadero, the address where FBI and IRS agents raided the offices of California Waste Solutions on June 20. That attack happened about a month before Juarez was shot at four times outside his home in the 1800 block of Fruitvale Avenue.  Juarez’s attorney, Ernie Castillo, told the media “these were definitely attempts to murder Mario.”

In January, Alameda County prosecutors charged Juarez in a felony fraud case stemming from election mailers he orchestrated against Thao’s top mayoral rival Loren Taylor during the final 10 days of the 2022 campaign. Juarez allegedly commissioned the flyers from an Oakland direct mailing company by writing over $53,000 in bounced checks. This wasn’t Juarez’s first run-in with failed firms — over the past several decades he started and/or ran companies that are no longer in operation. Two former business partners told CBS Bay Area that in 2012 Juarez stiffed them for $230,000 they invested in his ventures — including a proposed fuel plant called Viridis.

County records show regulators have filed nearly $100,000 worth of state and federal tax liens against Juarez since 2015, a number of which are still outstanding. Also in 2015, Juarez was forced to surrender his real estate license amid allegations of wrongful business dealings. Yet, just one year later, Bonta asked the California Energy Commission to award that $3.4 million grant to Viridis, where Juarez was the president and donated to Bonta’s re-election campaign. Which brings us to Bonta’s wife, Mia.

In 2021, Mrs. Bonta ran for her husband’s old 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 Mario Juarez sent a letter from the 1241 High Street address to Kristina Duong of California Waste Solutions and sister of patriarch David Duong. “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 beams. He goes on to describe a partnership that will include use of a 6-acre parcel in the North Gateway Area of the former Army Base. “The site is fully CECA approved and would provide a complimentary co-location of our development with your operations. We clearly understand your needs and concur with your request to secure a portion of this site … We look forward to formalizing our agreement and providing CWS with our full support...”

When Juarez ran for the Alameda Democratic Central Committee, Mia Bonta endorsed him, presumably from that office on High Street they shared. In turn, Juarez made over $2,500 worth of donations to Mrs. Bonta’s campaign. Other donors included Sheng Thao, David Duong, and Mon Kil Quan, who also gave $700 to Oakland councilmember Rebecca Kaplan’s campaign in 2016 and another $700 in 2018, and $800 to Thao and Councilmember Nikki Fortunato Bas’s officeholder committees in 2019. Investigators allege that Quan was one of the “straw donors” who illegally made contributions on Andy Duong’s behalf. If Quan’s name rings a bell, that may be because, according to corporate filings, he was the owner of Music Cafe.

While Quan was listed as the owner of Music Cafe, a downtown Oakland restaurant and karaoke lounge, 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 Attorneys Office. In a 208-page file obtained by the Mercury News, four undercover agents made multiple late-night visits to the cafe in 2018 where they said 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 (two counts of felony possession of ketamine for sale were later dismissed). 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.

So, 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.

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 which oversees the budget of the California Department of Justice, which is led by her husband. Even the left-leaning Los Angeles Times editorial board called out the obvious conflict of interest, stating, “There are 79 other Assembly members, none of whom are married to the state’s attorney general, who could reasonably serve as a replacement.”

The Los Angeles Daily News also reported that as an assemblymember Rob Bonta made use of the power to “behest” contributions from companies with business before the state. After Mia founded a nonprofit called Literacy Lab in 2014, her husband helped to fund it by “behesting” Pacific Gas & Electric out of $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 annual compensation that year was $142,866.

Between 2013 and 2020, then-Assemblymember 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 hearts. Ironically, none of this is illegal in California, meaning a husband in a powerful office like Bonta can raise campaign funds from special interests and then donate the money to his wife’s campaign for office or to her nonprofit organizations. And in the Bontas’ case, the wife can chair the committee meant to be the financial watchdog of her husband’s office, which happens to be in charge of enforcing California state laws. As Jim Jones once said, “A man gotta make at least one bet a day, else he could be walking around lucky and never know it.”