OC Audit: $500,000 Grant for Little Saigon Outdoor Dining, No Receipts for Half of It

Phase two of the Orange County forensic audit found COVID-era contracts steered without competitive bidding — and, per LAist, no documentation for how much of the money was spent.

A county report released on Wednesday, August 12, 2026 found that former Supervisor Andrew Do and one other senior county official steered millions of dollars in COVID-era contracts and grants without putting the work out to bid, and that the county kept almost no record of where the money went, according to LAist, which reported on the findings the following morning.

The clearest single example in the LAist account is a $500,000 small business grant. The money went out in May 2021 to a real estate firm, Bridgecreek Realty Investment Corp., to widen outdoor dining in Little Saigon while the pandemic ran. Under the terms Do approved, the auditors found, Bridgecreek never had to show the county what it bought — no invoices, no receipts. More than half of that public money has no paper trail at all.

LAist reported that it left a voicemail with Frank Jao, the owner of Bridgecreek, requesting comment.

Warnings raised, and set aside

The audit also lays out repeated moments when senior Orange County officials were told something looked wrong with the county dollars, millions of them, going to a nonprofit tied to Do's adult daughter, Rhiannon Do, and did not act. In one episode the auditors describe, Clayton Chau, the county's former health care director, dressed down a subordinate who raised concerns and said "that Supervisor Do was a lawyer and he would know if there was a conflict." LAist reported that Chau did not return a text or a voicemail message.

Frank Kim, Orange County's former chief executive, also sat with the auditors. Kim was aware of the alleged conflict of interest, the audit says, but did not consult the county's top lawyer at the time, relying instead on assurances from Do's then-chief of staff, Chris Wangsaporn, that there was no conflict. Wangsaporn did not respond to a voicemail from LAist.

Kim spoke to LAist on Wednesday. "It's not an excuse, but that was a strange time," he said, adding of the pandemic and the audit's findings: "None of the processes were really set up to deal with emergencies." He said he had trusted the supervisors and senior county staff. "I never thought there would be fraud," Kim told LAist. "These were people I had worked with for a long time. I never thought they would do something like that."

What the board said

Supervisor Donald Wagner called for deeper investigation into what he described as "potential additional abuses of taxpayers' dollars." Supervisor Janet Nguyen, elected to replace Do, said Do and Chau had "scammed taxpayers in the most difficult time of their lives," and said the audit showed the county had "routinely bypassed its own rules" when it hired outside vendors. Katrina Foley, a third supervisor, said the report laid bare "deficiencies in oversight and accountability that the board continues to address."

The accountability question is still open

The Orange County Board of Supervisors ordered the forensic review after the Do scandal, and Wednesday's report is its second phase, covering the county's largest pandemic-era contracts. The outside firm Weaver is doing the work. Foley said the county must complete the next two scheduled phases to "uncover remaining problems, strengthen our controls, and protect taxpayers from corruption and abuse" — which is to say the corrective work is described as unfinished.

What the LAist account does not establish is what, specifically, changed in Orange County purchasing rules after 2021: whether documentation requirements now attach to emergency grants of this kind, or whether the mechanics that produced the Bridgecreek award remain available. That question is not answered in the reporting reviewed here.

Do pleaded guilty to a federal bribery charge in 2024, after LAist spent more than a year documenting how he steered roughly $13 million in public money to a group linked to his daughter Rhiannon, then a student. Federal officials say at least $550,000 was rerouted back to Do and his two daughters as bribes, while just 15% of the money was used to feed residents. He is scheduled for release in June 2029, according to the federal Bureau of Prisons.

The Orange County Board of Supervisors meets on alternating Tuesdays at 9:30 a.m. at 400 W. Civic Center Drive in Santa Ana.