"It was announced with great fanfare and hope: a memorial in the center of Orange County to honor veterans of the Vietnam War. But two years and more than $1 million later, the memorial stands as an unlikely symbol of corruption and broken promises. The memorial project is plagued by shoddy construction and, according to Orange County Supt. Janet Nguyen, mired in fraud."
"Former Orange County Supervisor Andrew Do was sentenced to five years in federal prison in June after taking more than $550,000 in bribes and steering millions of dollars in contracts and federal pandemic funds to a nonprofit that, in turn, funneled the money to his two daughters. In September 2023, Do allocated $1 million in taxpayer money from his discretionary fund to that nonprofit, the Viet America Society, where one of his daughters was an executive."
A Vietnam War memorial in Fountain Valley's Mile Square Park was funded and built amid high hopes but now shows cracking and shoddy workmanship. Officials called the structure shameful and demanded it be torn down and replaced to properly honor veterans. Former Orange County Supervisor Andrew Do was sentenced to five years after taking more than $550,000 in bribes and steering millions in contracts and pandemic funds to a nonprofit linked to his daughters. In September 2023, Do allocated $1 million of taxpayer discretionary funds to the Viet America Society; the nonprofit named a daughter as an executive. The project was intended to echo the Washington, D.C., memorial and acknowledge South Vietnamese allies.
Read at Los Angeles Times
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]