Federal prosecutors sought to portray former Mayor Sheng Thao as a greedy politician “who put her own monetary interest above the people that she was supposed to serve,” as a high-profile corruption trial got underway in downtown Oakland on Wednesday.
The government and defense attorneys for Thao, Andre Jones, and David and Andy Duong each began making their cases to a jury of 12, in a courtroom packed shoulder-to-shoulder with media and members of the public.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Abraham Fine described an alleged scheme first presented in a January 2025 indictment. Standing behind a podium in the courtroom, he showed jurors photos of the defendants and excerpts from text conversations between them, including some eye-catching exchanges…