Orange County Supervisors are unsure how to ask the U.S. Department of Justice to push for a harsher sentence on disgraced former OC Supervisor Andrew Do after he pleaded guilty to a bribery scheme. 

Do’s plea agreement centers around $10 million he steered to a nonprofit his daughter helped run to feed seniors in Little Saigon – but federal prosecutors say most of that money is unaccounted for. 

Now, county supervisors are set to again debate the issue in two weeks after asking county staff to weigh in on the options and map out a way forward. 

Do is currently scheduled to be sentenced in June, and faces a maximum of five years in prison under his plea agreement approved last October. 

[Read: Former OC Supervisor Andrew Do Pleads Guilty to Bribery Scheme]

But Supervisor Janet Nguyen, who replaced Do on the dais after the November election, says that isn’t enough time. 

“It’s clear this plea agreement does not reflect the gravity of the crime,” Nguyen said at the board’s Tuesday meeting. “If we allow the endgame to be what it is today, it’ll be up to five years and we didn’t say a word.” 

She and other board members also highlighted how Do’s attorney recently disclosed to the county that he’d continued receiving confidential emails after leaving office by forwarding emails from his county account to his personal email, though he denies having read them. 

Nguyen asked her colleagues to send a resolution to both Attorney General Pam Bondi and newly appointed US Attorney Bill Essayli, whose office is handling the case, asking to reevaluate the plea deal. 

“The US Department of Justice reached a rushed plea agreement with Andrew Do,” reads Nguyen’s memo, adding that the “apparent leniency of Do’s plea agreement raises concerns about disparate treatment.” 

Supervisors Vicente Sarmiento and Don Wagner raised concerns that it wasn’t the board’s place to tell prosecutors or a judge how to handle criminal cases. 

“It’s nice to say it’s just about reviewing and reassessing. But our thumb is on the scale,” Wagner said. “Stay in our lane and let the judge do his duty.” 

Sarmiento said he planned to file an official letter to the court documenting the damage Do did.

“That’s where I feel it’s appropriate to opine,” Sarmiento said, earlier noting it’s inappropriate for the OC Board of Supervisors to tell federal prosecutors how to handle the case. 

But every supervisor agreed they want Do to get the maximum possible sentence, with several pointing out how former Anaheim Mayor Harry Sidhu only got two months in jail after admitting he fed critical information to an Angels consultant during the now-dead stadium land sale and lied to FBI agents about it. 

[Read: Disgraced Former Anaheim Mayor Harry Sidhu Sentenced to Two Months in Prison]

“I’m just as offended by former Mayor Harry Sidhu, who just got two months,” Sarmiento said, asking if they’d be weighing in on other sentences going forward. 

Supervisor Doug Chaffee echoed those concerns. 

“(Sidhu’s) plea deal allowed for a greater sentence and yet he didn’t get it and that kinda jolted me a little bit,” Chaffee said. 

Chaffee, one of the co-sponsors of the original letter to Bondi and Essayli, backed off his own item as discussion went on, saying he wanted a unanimous decision from the board on what to do next. 

“I want to bring the entire board along,” Chaffee said. 

“I don’t think you can on this issue,” Nguyen replied, urging her colleagues to send the letter immediately. “We need to give them the time to look at it before the sentencing.” 

At the next meeting, board members are set to review an updated version of Nguyen’s resolution and an amicus brief – a court record that functions as a letter to the prosecutor and judge, that would call for Do to get the maximum sentence for the crimes he pleaded guilty to.  

Supervisor Katrina Foley backed Nguyen’s proposal, adding that she felt they could also move forward with an amicus brief. 

“I don’t see why we can’t do both,” Foley said. “We just all have different ways of feeling we have a role to play in this process and I respect everyone’s perception on that.”

Noah Biesiada is a Voice of OC reporter and corps member with Report for America, a GroundTruth initiative. Contact him at nbiesiada@voiceofoc.org.