Music you The meeting of the County of Orange Board of Supervisors will begin shortly. If you would like to address the Board of Supervisors, please follow these steps. Complete a speaker request form. Deposit your completed form in the box adjacent to the speaker podium. comments can also be submitted electronically via email at response at ocgov.com. you . you I'm going to go back to the place where I'm going to go. I'm going to go back to the place where I'm going to go. I'm going to go back to the place where I'm going to go. I'm going to go back to the place where I'm going to go. I'm going to go back to the place where I'm going to go. I'm going to go back to the place where I'm going to go. I'm going to go back to the place where I'm going to be a little bit more careful. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. the and Okay. Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to this special meeting at the Orange County Board of Supervisors for April 29, 2025. A couple of reminders for the meeting. We'll be sure the main entrance when entering and leaving the room. Please use it. All the doors are alarmed for emergency exit only. We set all phones to mood or vibrate at this time for the duration of the meeting. Agendas and questions speak are located in LaWey outside the boardroom. Parking validation for the P4 parking lot adjacent to the County administration north building is available. Please see the deputy clerk next to the podium who receive a validation card. We'll now proceed to the agenda for this morning meeting. This agenda contains a brief description of each item if we consider it. Except as otherwise provided by law, no action shall we take any item, not appearing in today's agenda. Wish you address the board, please complete a speaker crest form located in lobby outside the boardroom. Colleagues force must be deposited in a box next to the podium. And this morning we do not have any consent county items. Or I think what was the regular items. Let's say and we do have one discussion item which will be heard after our closed session. Speakers may address the board to three minutes. When you're called to speak we step to the podium. You request that you state your name and city residence for the record. Please note the light of the podium. The green light means you have three minutes. Like change of the yellow into one minute. Like change of red when your time has expired. Ask that you observe the title limits. So all of which to speak may have an opportunity to do so. Dr. Ossene Alexander Bourd, please adjust the board as a whole through the chair. And now let's see, we don't have any closed session and any public hearing. We do have a discussion calendar. Due to the scheduling matters, we'll move first to closed session and take the amend of the gender after closed session. Return here about 415 to 430 PM. Madam Court, please read the titles, the closed session items. I can't executive office public employee appointment. soon to go for a go for Section 54957B title, county executive officer, and closed session two, conference of labor negotiator, pursuant to government code section 54957.6. Agents, you just seen a negotiator, Jamie Newton, chief human resources officer, employee organization, workers represented by United domestic workers of America, regarding terms and conditions of employment employment and we have no requests to speak on the closed session items. Thank you Madam Clark. At this time we'll adjourn the closed session. you Good afternoon, everyone. or back from our closed session county council is there any report out of any action we've taken in closed section oh it's not here yet okay well we'll ask him a later sorry about that when I'll let's go to our concession concession sorry, I'm sorry. I need something to drink Now move to our discussion calendar madam clerk. Please read item one Under county council approve and direct county council to submit victim impact statement to the Orange County District Attorney United States Department of Justice and are the United States District Court in the matter of United States versus Andrew Huangdo. We have no request to speak on agenda item one. This is an all district item. Is there a motion of any sort or do we need to discuss this? Mr. Chairman, may I? Please go ahead. Thank you. I am. Okay. So. Chairman me I please go ahead thank you I am Okay, so I although we did get an announced vote on the resolution last meeting I'm actually very grateful that we are In agreement to submit in this victim impact statement, but I also think it's important part of the process to gain justice and I want to thank everybody for willingness to come together and getting this drafted. I largely agree with the edits that are presented to us today. However, I think it is important that we keep the list of potential charges and the arguments against the sentencing reduction in there. Because I don't think that we should lessen or the victim statements should feel like it's lessening the statement. I know that there's comments from board members that it maybe goes above and beyond and impact statement. Would regards to the charges. I just think I get that this is not within our purview to evaluate the merits of those charges, but that's not what we are doing. It's a victim statement. The DOJ tells us that those crimes could not have been charged based on the facts laid out in the plea agreement. So we are not speculating. It is in the plea agreement. So those charges that are listed were from the agreement. It's not that we made it up or suggested to, you know, coming up with our own ideas. So we're just, you know, in our opinion, my opinion is that we're simply asking the court to consider all the charges he could have been charged with as evidence to show that maximum sentences is effectively a light sentencing. These are the facts in front of us. We don't have to be an expert to understand what the DOJ is going to say. The purpose of an impact statement is to express our feelings to the extent that it will persuade the judge to impose a higher sentencing and to reevaluate what is before them. So this is very much how we feel and it's based on the facts presented we're using the facts to support what we believe. And quite frankly, everybody here agrees that he's already receiving legency. It mean, it's very lenient of the plea and he should receive more. So turning to the sentence reduction, I'm okay with taking out the reference to the case. But I would like to make sure that we show on there that it needs to be the max if not more. You know, because I believe, you know, our constituents have been, I mean, they felt betray the their angry and stays do have not received an apology from him. The sentiment needs to be included to actually reflect their voices and their concerns. And so again, these are not only our sentiment, but these are of our constituent, particularly the first district. This is how they feel having seen the plea agreement. We can express how Andrew Dohn, his crime, has impacted us and we can also express how the plea that he agreed to also impacts us. Perhaps, you know, it can be rewritten to say that the DOJ agreed to not prosecute those charges rather than saying we are upset that the DOJ should have, but didn't pursue those charges. That way we can use it as a basis for saying five years is still too light. So, you know, I look, this case has united people across the political spectrum, who just want to see justice and not have elected official get away with corruption. And so with that, I think, hopefully that kind of helps where I'm coming from in terms of some of the changes. I also, the other part, I know that was struck out was was in regards to reference to the reporter and why his name should remove or why it should not be reference at all. My understanding, the original to add that reference is to show just how corrupt the former supervisor is, how evil, how he just once go after people because of his political power. And just to most people don't realize this, when he sent that out, it wasn't really for the mainstream media. It was for the Vietnamese American community media to say, don't you even dare report against me. That was the message that I might get you fired. So it was actually targeting the ethnic community more than it is, you know, an LA issue or whatever, you know, it's not about him as much, but it was about showing how he is the man, he is the power, he is God. And so I think that's where is keeping it in there shows the totality of his attitude, of his personality, of the whole scheme that he came up with, continuing to suppress people who comes forward. And he did, he did suppress media within the ethnic community. Most of them didn't even report on it. They were so scared to death of him. If you report against him, he calls you out. He goes on the radio and TVs and he calls you out and he just comes after people. And if he can get someone like an LA-ish to get fire, that's a message that's gonna be, really it's a dominoes effect in the community. So that's why I think that, you know, at least some kind of reference that that did occur, even though it's not mentioning a particular name. Although I think, you know, I mean, if it wasn't for that reporter, this would not have happened. The light wasn't, you know, would not have shone against, you know, the corruption. So those are my comments and I'm not sure if that makes sense or you know, I hopefully that comes across to where my sentiment and my feelings of the current draft. Who's our Wagner? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And we've had a number of conversations on this. I won't belabor it. I don't necessarily agree that all of us think the five years is too lenient. In fact, the cases that I cited at our last board meeting, Senator Calderone, Assembly Member Brother Tom Calderone. When we look at the my corona case, we look at John Hannah, former congressman out of Orange County, was charged in a 45 count federal indictment. didn't get the sentence that Andrew Doe is getting here. Former supervisor Ralph D. Trick, taking bribes, got two years served, I think a year of it roughly. And so to suggest this is lenient, I don't think is reflective of the true history of Orange County. This is a significant sentence. And I applaud the changes that you've made to it. I thank Council for taking a look at the edits that I submitted. And I believe the document in front of us is worthy of support, unanimous support. And so I will move the current iteration of the victim witness statement. Supervisor Foley. Thank you. So I gave a couple changes to Mr. Page today. They were not that substantive necessarily, but one change that I did add was related to the war memorial in adding that as one of the egregious acts in that section. I don't have it in front of me because I gave it to you, Mr. Page. Yeah, can we just see it real quick? Thanks. In that on page 1, 2, 3, the full paragraph before the last two sentences. It lists the, there's a blue underlying section that says, defendant directed the misappropriation of county funds knowing they would be used for his enrichment instead of providing meals to county seniors and disabled residents or building a Vietnam or memorial. Because we do reference the Vietnam or memorial funds, and that was a million dollars, and then we all know that never got finished, even though the million dollars got paid. And so I added that, and would the maker of the motion include that language? And then the only other part that I added that wasn't like a grammar was before we talk about the line that says to cover up the ongoing misappropriation of county funds. And then there's a conclusion that the associates submitted false and misleading reports, et cetera, et cetera. I think we need to add the language discovery and depositions to date show this because that's where we got that information. We're not just concluding it on our own. We have proof. So that's all I added. If you'll accept those, I'll second your motion. Good. We have. Repizer. Sorry, Anto. Yes, thank you, Chair. So Mr. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. So, Mr. County Council, could you explain the timeline on this? Thank you, Mr. Chair. And yes, we are pressed for time. And that's because we've been in contact with the District Attorney's Office, Mr. Avery Harrison. And we've been informed that if the board is to approve a victim impact statement, it would then be included in the, what's called the pre-sentence report, the PSR. Now under the federal rules, the PSR must be provided to the defendant. So to Mr. Doe, 35 days before his sentencing. And we know that his sentencing is currently scheduled for June 9th. So counting then forward, 35 days, that takes us to May 5th. So unfortunately, we don't have another board date for the board to take action as a whole to approve of victim impact statements. Today really seems to be the last day unless the chair were to call another special meeting. So we don't have a lot of time here, and I do. I appreciate the board comments, and certainly we can incorporate Supervisor Foley's additions, but I do think if the board wants to be heard, this is the opportunity to do so. So, and just to be clear, this victim impact statement, is it in lieu of an amicus? Is it the same? Is it going to go in tandem with an amicus? Are we thinking about doing that at sentencing? Thank you, Sue Reser. So we have, again, been in contact with Mr. Harrison at the DA's office and he actually envisions two sub-mintels. First, this victim impact statement that will be included in the piece. Secondly, as we approach sentencing, we'll be working on a brief that will include exhibits that will include the actual monetary losses sustained by the county. Right? I'm not going to call it an amicus brief, but it is a brief of a sort in which we'll be attaching exhibits. Great. That's really helpful. Just because we know this won't be the only way to get the property to be able to be able to demonstrate the hard costs of antidoes misconduct upon the county. So I'm not going to call it an amicus brief, but it is a brief of a sort in which we'll be attaching of the sort and which will be attaching exhibits. Great. That's really helpful. Just because we know this won't be the only time we have the only opportunity we have to communicate with the court, what we enumerate as outrageous behavior. And I really think that we can't limit the number of cases that we're including or referencing or talking about to just county cases because the US Attorney covers an entire region. And we've seen that there's been a spectrum of really varied sentencing when it comes to, you know, Mayor Sadoo, when it comes to Super Council member Weezer and Los Angeles, divergently different, you know, sentencing, two months to 13 years, right? So we have this spectrum. I think what's unique about us is that we can tell the story of why we feel the range is in my opinion light, but at the very least we should be pushing for the maximum end of that high end of that range. So how we do it will be through the brief that you are that we're anticipating working with you on. I just um you know want to say that I think that this document is fine. It doesn't tell I think describe the outrage. I think that supervisor Win has to now explain to her district and people who are there who feel like yeah this doesn't seem to be really supervisor, when has she now explained her district and people who are there who feel like, yeah, this doesn't seem to be really as descriptive, as graphic, as maybe what the harm was. And I hope we can do that in the brief. But I certainly think that I showed deference to her even though the harm was done to the entire county. It was really uniquely done to that district. So I certainly want to support what the supervisor who represents that district would want to do. I'm not sure if sometimes I know you circulated documents to us where we've been able to interlineate strike certain things. Do we have to approve a final document now or if we have time and you say, look, give us till the end of the week, if there's something that the supervisor wants to include, can that be circulated to the board? And say, look, give me your final comments at till the end of the week. I appreciate what you're saying. The challenge is that there are five very different supervisors on this board. And unless I can bring you all together, unless you debate it out, a change that maybe sought by Chairman Chaffee may be objectionable to Supervisor Wagner or to Reservant, and I've no way of mediating those conflicts. Understood. So this is it. Look, again, I think if there's anything stronger that the The supervisor would like to include if she wants to reference if she wants to reference those cases that she believes or more I think will demonstrate the fact that you know this lenient is Relatively light. I will support that Those cases at the the is recommending. Supervisor Nguyen. Oh sorry thank you Mr. Chairman. There were four votes here who voted on the last resolution. Those comments on that resolution isn't part of most of them are even in this letter. So I'm not sure, I mean, and all due respect is that the motion is from the supervised who did not vote on that last week. So it's like we're making changes and now downplaying our victim statement versus what we voted on a week ago. And so, I mean, the fact that we don't have the max sentences we asked, it doesn't have listening to crimes that he was potentially could have been charged in the plea agreement. We didn't make that up. It was in the plea agreement. So, help me understand how I'm supposed to go out to my constituency. Hey, we got, last week, we got four one votes on this really strong resolution that we really worked on and we collectively, five of us up here on the dice for two rounds doing it. Now we come back to this victim statement, hey, you know, he did wrong and maybe you should, you know, I don't know, maybe give him some sentencing, but you know, we don't know if it's a maximum. How do I explain that? So you know, the edit, I'm fine with a lot of them, but there aren't in here that we, there's four here that voted for it and So I'm still trying to understand and you know, I get the other cases that were cited Well, I wasn't a supervisor You know, I would I mean it wasn't my district. I didn't call it out. This is about my district And this is about the County of Orange. I'm not citing. I mean, you know, we're not going to talk about 50, 20, 30 years cases. We're trying to narrow down to more recent cases that we've solved. And yeah, it is unfair, but I'm not in Los Angeles County to call on it. I wasn't representing 700,000 residents on a specific case that lost over $10 million during COVID, again, going back to the, during COVID, I wasn't in an office, but I went out and sought as for funding dollars, pennies to get 6,000 pounds of right rice in my district. I know my supervisor at the time had 10 million dollars to serve. You know how much 10 million dollars can I buy how many bag of rice and we had to narrow it down those bag of rice to those who are over 75 years old because we couldn't help, I mean we couldn't help the younger ones, I mean young, I mean that's that's how much I had to do during COVID when I was not an elected official. And I was just watching the news and hearing that, okay, all of us in the community is looking for toilet paper and everything else, bottle waters, there's a community who couldn't get right rights and that's their stable. That's what they eat every day. Why there's a county supervisor that represent that very community took over 10 million dollars and squander it. On top of that, the disrespect of putting a vent on warm memorial, a million dollars and nothing has come out. Do you know, I mean, you don't understand the anger that I could continue on. This to me is offensive and it is wrong. So you have four supervisors here that has made their comments voted on up here, a strong resolution. Yet then we send out a statement, victim statement, like this because of one change, I mean, changes from one board that did not want it to vote and did not vote it for the resolution. So I'm still trying to understand that. County Council, what happened with the resolution we adopted last time by a quarter one vote? Where did that go? Part of the boards direction in connection with that item, in connection with the boards approval, the resolution was to direct me to send a formal letter, an official letter to the US Attorney General, Pambanti, and to the US Attorney for this region. And so that went out on Monday and a copy of the resolution was attached. So that resolution now has been transmitted to the US Department of Justice. So this statement is really a separate supplement? Oh, this has a very in very different purpose. Yeah. The purpose of the victim impact statement is it's addressed to the judge. It's addressed to the court, right, Judge Surnum. Its purpose is for the board to express in their own words, right, the impact that this crime had on the board and on the public to inform the court, not just of the legal issues, right, but of the emotional and physical and financial consequences of the defendant's misconduct. The purpose is to humanize the case, right? This isn't just dollars and cents, right? There were real people. This supervisor went to this eloquently stated, real people that went without because of this criminal behavior. So ultimately, this statement is intended to influence and persuade the judge, whereas that letter that the board previously approved me sending? And that resolution was intended to persuade the prosecutor? All right. And this would have the potential be included in the pre-sentencing report as an attachment. Yes. I have an idea. Okay. Supervisor Foley. Thank you. So Mr. Page, can we just attach the resolution to the victim impact statement? Is that possible for us to do that? Then we incorporate everything that I think we all agree should be included in this current victim impact statement. But in the interest of getting a unanimous vote up here, can we do that? Yes. Okay. We can attach the resolution. You could direct me to include as an attachment the Board's resolution. Absolutely. So I would request the maker of the motion to include the resolution. No. Okay. So I'll withdraw my second. Mr. Chairman. I'll move that we include. I'll move that we attach the resolution to the victim impact statement. I will second that with one request is to add in the letter that we include asking for maximum sentencing. I would concur with that. I'll second it. I'll let her out. Okay. Yeah. And the reason I would concur with that, look, one of the examples that we gave in our resolution is a case that I was involved in. And it was a case where a guy, he was bribing a restaurant tour and we're talking like less than $50,000 in bribes. Terrible, terrible mayor and his planning commissioner bribing the public and preventing a restaurant tour from being able to open his restaurant. Ultimately, they lost the property because of this behavior. Now, he got two years for this violation. And we're talking about somebody who got $10 million bought properties. And it's not just about Andrew Dowe. It's also that this plea agreement covers his daughters. It covers both daughters. It covers, I mean, it's protecting them, basically, especially the one daughter. We haven't heard about the second daughter yet, but we know there's bad actions there. So we're really, he's getting, we should be getting the full benefit of the sentencing given the egregiousness of the crimes. And I support Supervisor Wenz outrage. I mean, I lived through this, right? I've been outraged so many times over this situation. And so much of the gaslighting that went on and of course gaslight lighting to me personally when I would ask what I thought was a normal question. So I share your outrage even during this time when our office is trying to help people, you know, we're getting shut down. We can't do it. Meanwhile, he's buying houses for his daughter. So I completely agree with the outrage. I agree that the sentence should be the maximum allowable. I think we attach the resolution and that covers all the basis. So, what is your Wagner? Well, the resolution in the victim with this victim impact statement served two very different purposes. And what we are doing here is conflating them by attaching the resolution we are diminishing the impact statement or by attaching the resolution we are somehow again saying to the court that we believe that what we're trying to do as the victim here is not being fully represented by the district attorney and the federal prosecuting agencies and by you the judge in your sentencing. There is no place in our system of justice for a political body to send in a resolution. is is a place for a witness, a victim impact statement, and that's the role that we appropriately fill. That's the role that a majority of us in drafting this document agreed to. It's not just that this showed up out of the mind of council in our board packets this morning. It came from council at its eye made, at its the chairman made, at its on the Dias or this morning that the vice chairman made. This is a document that has got at least right there a majority of this board supporting. And now we're saying, oh, never mind, let's just throw the whole kitchen sink in at it. And so if you're doing it for you and an eminion, you're not gonna get it because that approach is as wrong today as it was last week to try to exercise political influence. The role for victims, we are victims, supervisor, when just did an outstanding job of explaining why we are victims and in particular her community are victims. That's what the judge needs to hear. That's what the statement that we were debating says. All of the rest of it that's in this resolution is not what we just heard from Supervisor Wynn. It goes above and beyond our role. It is terribly inappropriate, I believe, for us to do it. I like the statement unadorned because that's a proper role for a victim to express outrage to a federal judge. Supervisors, Charmaine, at all. Yeah, thank you, Chair. And I know we're in the interest of time. I'm going to make it really brief. I agree with the motion and the second and the changes that were implemented. I appreciate what the supervisor just spoke about, but I do believe that when we were talking about the resolution, at least I heard three strong voices saying, we just think that this is a very lenient sentence. At least that's my opinion, and I don't feel that this victim impact statement captures that spirit well. And to the to the extent that we are bearing the lead by not saying in my opinion, it's a lenient range to begin with, and at the very least, you should be, the court should be exercising its decision-making authority to go at the upper end of that range. that I don't see in there. I don't see the detail of, as you said, this is supposed to really personalize our story. And we lived through a year worth of, like, just pain from people that came to this chamber and spoke to us. So it's a very difficult document to incorporate all that sense of loss and abuse because that's really what it was. And I do think that some of the cases that maybe you know the vice chair, the through I knew Jose Weezer and I know what he did. It was outrageous. Nowhere near what former supervisor Doe did in my opinion. So to the extent that I am supportive of it, I think it's a little clumsy to include attachments, but again, we're trying to tell a narrative and we're trying to explain to the court how deeply shocked our consciences are, at least mine is. And again, I don't believe in unanimity all the time. There are times that we're going to disagree. This is a deliberative body. So to the extent that there is majority support for something, I feel we just need to move it. So I'm supportive of the motion. I would ask County Council in doing the brief, whether we want to call it, that may be included in the Presentencing Report, is that resolution also going to be an attachment to it possibly. So we already have that information in the brief itself. I have just shared with you what I consider to be an attorney client privilege communication regarding the advice we've received from the DA's office concerning that secondary document that brief and the exhibits so that would be included that we'd be submitting before the sentencing. Could we attach the resolution to that as well? Yes, I'm sure we could. Well, I'm taking a little different tack. It seems to me by adding and I appreciate the outrage. What Supervisor Wynn is suggesting, weakens the document. This is a document intended to express victim problems and victim experience. And I feel a judge who's going to get all this and the victim experience. And I feel a judge was going to get all this sentencing information anyway and they may resent having that thrown at them in a victim statement. And as I would, if we can include the previous resolution and the victim statement in a brief itself and you've got both already there, one not weakening the other. I think there's a strength to just speaking as victims. And the judge and the people at DA and the federal prosecutor can use that more eloquently, I think, say, look at all these other sentences. Look at what happened that supervisor did to all these victims. And that's what I think raises the opportunity to go to the top of the sentence, as opposed to just saying, look at everybody else got. So I have an issue for a different reason. I want it to be strong, but I think we already have that. And if we can put both of those statements together, then you have it there anyway. And I want the victim statement to be as strong as it can possibly be without being detracting and telling the judge what the judge should do. The victim statement will create the emotional effort for the judge to do what should be done. So I'm troubled by that. I feel like I've already voted on that last time and I support that, but separately, I like to support the victim statement because it speaks differently. So okay where are we Sue Reservoli? Not really following what the request is from the chairman do you know what he's saying?, I understood the chairman to be referencing the second document will be preparing the brief with exhibits and that we could include the resolution and perhaps the letter with that packet. That's what I understood so wouldn't be attached to the victim impact statement at this time for this submittal, but it would come later. That's what I understood. So what's the difference? I guess I don't understand the differences. I mean, I understand physically what the difference is. I think the chairman, I don't want to speak for the chairman, but what I heard the chairman say is that he feels that attaching the resolution and letter to Pam Bondy, right, which serves a different purpose, would weaken the impact of this statement. I mean, I don't necessarily agree with that. I think I don't also understand this argument about we are making it political. Okay, we're the victims. I mean, it's not political. We're expressing our position and we just happen to be a political body. It's not exerting political influence. We happen to be the ones that got victimized. We, the collective, we, the county of orange, the board of supervisors. And it went beyond the $10 million. It went beyond the properties that were purchased, the property taxes that were paid, the credit cards bills that were paid. It also impacted our county staff. It called the community to question the trust of our operational systems, of all of our employees of our procurement process. And so we've incurred a lot of I think pain to try to overcome this situation. And it's ongoing. We're continuing to feel the pain. We all know that from today. So I guess, look, I just want to get it done. And I'm going to defer to Supervisor Wynn how you want to proceed because for me it doesn't really matter if they're both going that's fine. I think it would be stronger. I don't, I agree with Supervisor Sarmiento. We don't need to all be unanimous on everything. I never have supported that position but I do think in this instance, it would be nice if we had a 5-0 vote on the victim impact statement. If so long as the resolution goes forward as well in some capacity to the judge, because I do think it's important that the judge understand it's more than just money that has been impacted here. And as I'm sitting here thinking about it, that's not even included in our victim impact statement. I mean, it could be more colorful. I mean, you can maybe work on that, maybe still. Yeah. Two Pfizer-Wyder. All right. Guess my question was though, I never got answered. Supervisor Wynne, I mean, what do you want to question. I'm not sure if it's a question. I'm not sure if it's a question. I'm not sure if it's a question. I'm not sure if it's a question. I'm not sure if it's a question. I'm not sure if it's a question. I'm not sure if it's a question. I'm not sure if it's a question. I'm not sure if it's a question. and the way it is and the statement, if it was my choice, the edits that were made shouldn't even be there. So I'm trying to compromise here. I'm trying to move forward with, you know, respecting comments and respecting my colleagues and, you know, what would make it comfortable, because if you're not willing to even vote on it, then let's go back to the original. That is hard hitting, impactful, hey, judge, your honor, help us, help us help our community. Show it that this should never happen again in the county of Orange. Show any elected official. I mean, that's what the original one is. So the delusion of downplaying some of the languages there, I get it, I get the reorganization of some of the language. I'm fine moving forward. With again, adding the resolution and the resolution wasn't just about the US attorney. It does line out and it was very strong. It helps with that letter because we are the victim. We should show outrage. We should show anger. We shouldn't be just the nice victim. We should tell the judge and everybody possible, So hey, help us understand this. Help us send this man to where he belongs. That's what I'm, so I'm okay with where we are with the motion and my second is to make that addition, my addition as well is to add add the maximum, requesting maximum sentences in the letter and at the resolution, as an attachment basically, you know, also attach a resolution supported by the Board of Supervisors, you know, regarding this case. May I say that the current version of the writer? May I just, you're great. We'll point out, the current version of the victim impact statement that was attached to the agenda does request the defendant be sentenced to the maximum term allowed under the law and be ordered pay restitution and a matter that both recognizes the full scope of public harm and betrayal as actions caused and that it also makes the county and its residents whole. what it does not do though is list has been debated and discussed. The other crimes that can no longer be charged because they were covered by the plea agreement. So that is no longer in this and I did hear Sue Brezer win at one point. Speak about referencing those other potential federal crimes that Andrew Dowe could have been charged with. That's not currently in the draft before you. Okay, Sue Brezer. Wagner. Thank you. All right, a couple of things, and I know we beat this to death almost, but at the end of the day, what we get here today is probably a 50 vote with the victim impact statement as provided to us with my edits and the chairman's edits and the edits made from the Dias by supervisor by Vice Chair Foley. Probably Echo's 50, I don't know, but it certainly gets my support. What we will not get is unanimity if we are also going to throw in these additional attachments that go beyond what we're supposed to do. The question asked by Supervisor Foley is, so what's the difference? And to my mind, the difference is stark. And the difference is very much a question of what role do we play. We are the victims. We are the victims. But the statement, the rezo, the rezo from a board of supervisors, is not something a victim usually does because it's not something a victim can do. What is it? It is something a political body looking to get as much notoriety, as much attention as possible, and put as much pressure on the prosecuting authorities and the judges. That's something the political body can do. Going in and saying to the judge that you are being lenient, and there was an even worse word, and I don't remember exactly what it was. If you were going to downplay the importance of these charges, at least give him the maximum sentence. We were as a political body because we passed a political resolution. We are saying to the judge, you're not doing your job unless you see it our way to the prosecutors. You didn't do your job because you didn't see it our way. And we don't think your sentence should stand. That's a political thing. That is a thing that a political organization like ours should not be doing. Where are the victims? That's explained in this statement. Including, including all of the harms to us and our legitimacy. In fact, Council just read a portion of it. There's much more than in what survives of the victim impact statement. So we are covering all of those bases. And it goes unanimous if it doesn't include the attachment that does in fact weaken it because it does all of a sudden instead of just saying there's the victim talking, it shows, wait a minute, we've got other fish to fry, we've got other political points to make in this system. That's how it weakens it. The The chair is absolutely right. It does weaken it. And so you want it 5.0. It's the one that's been edited by three of us and had emotion was on the floor at one point. It doesn't go unanimous if we start throwing all the rest of this stuff in. Back to Sufizer Nguyen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. No, I don't want unanimous because if you go back to the changes that was just suggested by the supervisor, I won't be voting for it. You know, at this point, it sounds like there's not unanimous. now now, actually, if the maker would help me, I would like to add back in all the charges that he could have back into the letter. Because if you're not going to vote for it, then I don't need to give the courtesy of adding your edits to this letter anymore. So at this point, I would ask the maker to include the charges that he could have been sentenced to into the victim statement. And let me just read out. Bribing of public officials prohibits public official from accepting bribes in exchange for influencing official action up to 15 years sentencing. Conspiracy to defraud the United States, agreement between two or more people to defraud the United States up to five years in prison. Thaff or bribery concerning programs receiving federal funds, stealing or accepting bribes tied to federal programs like the COVID relief up to 10 years in prison, false statements to financial institution, knowingly makes fault statements to obtain loans or financial assistance from federal insurer institution often used in COVID relief fraud cases up to 30 years in prison. Identity theft. Using another person's identity to commit fraud or theft mandatory two years years consecutively. Mail fraud, use of mail system to care out fraud, up to 20 years in prison. Wire fraud, use of electronic communication to carry out fraud, up to 20 years in prison. Commit or conspiracy to commit fraud, attempt or agreement to commit mail or wire fraud, to 10 years in prison, money laundering, considering the use of illegally obtained money through financial transaction, common in case of a bribery through shell companies up to 20 years in prison. Engaging in monetary transaction in criminal property, spending or transferring money obtained through unlawful activity more than $10,000 up to 10 years in prison. Had they looked at this, he would have gone away for way more than five years. And so at this point, I'm asking the maker, if you would consider adding those back into the letter. The victim statement. Mr. Chairman, through the chair. Supervisor Sarmanto, I guess it hinges on whether you would support that or not. I'm not sure who made what motion at this. Yeah, it's my motion, but we don't have revotes. No, that's a fair question. And just for my memory, did we adopt the resolution on a unanimous vote? No, it's just 4-1. So we haven't been unanimous on everything. So I don't think there's anything that's going to be inconsistent with having majority support on this given that we weren't unanimous on the resolution itself. So I would be supportive of those changes. I'm fine to add that language in. You need to have like a caveat that because we don't know what evidence was presented to the DOJ and the DA. And look, I believe that the DOJ and the DA did a great job. I am not questioning, as Supervisor Wadner continues to say, whether or not they did a good job. They continue to do a good job. I think we are prosecuting the cases and hopefully we will become whole through this whole process. We're going to take longer than any of us want. But so I am not questioning the credibility, integrity, work ethic, any part of that. However, we don't know what evidence was presented. We only know what we know, and we know that these are potential crimes that could have been charged. As a lawyer, I know there's always a deal to be made and so deals are made. But I think if we could include those list of potential crimes as a way to explain that we are concerned that the full sentencing for the crime he was charged for and pled for is issued given the severity of the crime and that there could be even further sentencing if he were to have been charged with these other potential crimes. You can say it more artfully than I can after this long day, but I'm fine to add that. Sir Pfizer Wagner. All right. Well, look, you just got done saying you don't know why they didn't charge this and there are obviously potential problems of proof there are reasons these we don't know. That's my point. And so to say that this is a charge they could have done, and that they should have done. And that's what we're saying. We're sticking into this statement. Is to second guess them? Is to question their work? Because they didn't do what we said, hey, you know, you could have done this and you could have given it more time. And we don't know why they didn't, but we are just assuming from our lofty perch that it could have should have and would have been done if there wasn't a sweetheart deal. That was the word. In one of the prior drafts, if the judge accepts this sweetheart deals, and now the judge is in on the sweetheart aspect of this. That's what's wrong with this. We're the victim. We got hurt. Our citizens couldn't buy rice. Our senator had, you weren't even a senator back at the time. Our community activists didn't have the resources because of what Do did. That's the power. That's the power of this statement. Not coming in and saying, and you could have charged wire-fraud and you could have charged this and you could have charged that. And it's not it's not our role. That's why this statement originally got three of us to edit it down so that it stayed in the right place. Now we're saying, okay We have to be careful. We have to be careful. We have to be careful. We have to be careful. We have to be careful. We have to be careful. We have to be careful. We have to be careful. We have to be careful. We have to be careful. We have to be careful. We have to be careful. who didn't get the victim. We're the victim. Tell the judge where the victim, because all of those poor people out in Orange County who didn't get the help that that money was supposed to give to them. Let the prosecutors explain to the judge why they charged this, that or the other thing, what problems of proof they had, what deal they made, and what good came out of the deal. Maybe they've got 10 other defendants who can give us our restitution because of this plea deal. We don't know. All right. How many more times can we go around? Mr. Chairman. All right, two buzzer, four. Thank you. Time number five. Thank you. Look, this is an important issue. I mean, we should get it right. And I just wanted to be crystal clear. I am not second guessing a judge. I'm not second guessing the'm not second-guessing the Department of Justice. However, we can put whatever we want in a victim-impact statement. We were just at the crime survivors' service just earlier. And I would expect that they would say, you can put whatever you want in a victim-impact statement. You could share how you feel. And in this case, I think most of us, majority of us at least feel there was wire fraud. There was money laundering. I mean, we know this. We're suing on a civil case for these very things. So, and we're going to be able to prove it, I believe, given what I've seen on the evidence. So I don't, I know that the plea agreement was done and we all know as lawyers, there's a deal that was made. We don't know why we may never know. We know there's continued cooperation that's ongoing and that is part of this plea agreement. And so I don't think it hurts to include a sentence that says we think that the full penalty, the five years max should be considered because these are the charges that could have been brought and they would accompany a much longer sentence. So I don't think that that's inappropriate in any means. I think it expresses our outrage and our victim-ness in a sufficient way. And I would ask that we call the question. Okay, I've got more comments here. You've had five shots. Let's give us the rest of us some opportunity. Sue, Raza, Sarriendo. I hope you count for everyone. Thank you, Chair. I simply was going to call for the question as well. But you know, Mr. Page that original Victim impact statement was drafted by your office correct Correct. Yes, there had been a board directive to prepare for the board's consideration of victim impact statement and so we wanted to accurately capture where we felt the board was like emotionally, you know, in terms of impacts aboard the board, the county, the public. Yeah. Thank you. No, the only reason why I ask is that, I think you started with that premise of trying to be as descriptive as possible as trying to incorporate as many of the comments that you've heard over time. Yes, that's right. As you've been hearing these comments again, probably for the past, you know, a couple of years, maybe maybe a year and a half at the very least and maybe more pointed now as we're getting close to sentencing. So to the extent that I think we were working with a document that your office thought about and I think again to the vice chairs point I do agree. There is no framework for a victim impact statement. It could be as narrow, it could be as broad, it could be as descriptive and graphic, or it can be very bland. It just depends on who's submitting it. And to the extent that we are a deliberative body, that was directly impacted by this, of course ours is gonna be much more detailed and pointed and maybe the fact that we have four lawyers here are gonna talk about is this the right instrument? Is it worded correctly we could we could edit this thing at Nazim all I'm saying is that to the extent that it has as much graphic detail that we experienced from the public a lot of these feelings aren't really ours but we are speaking on behalf of thousands and thousands of residents that were impacted by this. So I know it's a really difficult exercise to be able to incorporate all that, but I certainly think for the sake of being to show the totality of the harm, I certainly would prefer the original broader statement that was introduced by your office. So I'll be supporting the motion as amended. Well, I need to ask a question of County Council. The presences report is that prepared by who probation, who prepares that? That's right. The United States probation department. And is it optional what they attach and include? In other words, they may or may not include the victim statement as an attachment. My expectation of the process, and that's all I can say to at this point, because ultimately I don't control US probation. But my expectation of the process is that we will now, I will take the board's direction and make the comments that have been discussed today. I will then send a copy to the board and then also to Mr. Harrison in the DA's office. He's been designated as the official liaison at the local DA's office with the United States Department of Justice. He then will transmit the document to the US Attorney for inclusion in the presentencing report. Do I have control over the process at that point? No. All I can do is do my best to accurately convey the board's position. I expect it would be included in the presense report, but I don't have any control over that process. Let's get to that stage. In then the US attorney sends it to probation. Notice probation send it to the US attorney. I was drafted. Well, I think it would go from the DA to US Department of Justice then transmitted to the probation department and then transmitted to the court. So again, my expectation would be that the board statement is included but these are federal officials who I don't advise or control. All right well my concern is that it makes it more difficult to include a statement with all of the additional things in there. My concern is the plea agreement provides for a a certain sub up to five years. That's where I would like to go. I don't want to see a result like Harry Situ got who had a plea agreement with a larger sentence that was not given out. It's got a much lesser deal. And I feel we're stronger if we speak as a victim and we already have the other statement, includes all these other things, I think. Or did we leave something out? I don't remember. And the chances of this statement, label as a victim statement, which is way beyond that actually at this point, may not be included in a precensory report as a result of putting too much stuff in it and not really speaking as a victim per se And that's my concern. I want one to see the plea agreement fulfilled to its maximum sentence There may be other charges on something else that can come later. I don't know or it's possible that some of the things that the defendant was to do as part of the plea agreement were not done correctly, and that reopens the whole thing anyway, I think. And that's where a focus of the use of attorney needs to be was to plea agreement fulfilled by the defendant. Of all these things done, it was supposed to be done. And if they're not, and I think the plea agreement gets reopened, if I hear, if I understand how that works, or at least maybe it's in the judges' discretion to decide who the defendant didn't do what he's supposed to do. So let's look at this again. I just don't want this so repetitious and so voluminous that we're not heard. It is kind of where I'm at on this. Okay. All right. I heard, I guess, two calls to question that takes well, I may we don't need to need to just maybe just ready to vote are we ready to vote? May I state what I understand to be the motion yeah, yeah, that would help so I understand the motion Before you is to approve the victim impact statement as admitted by supervisor Foley to add references to the Vietnam War Memorial. And there were a few other changes like using the words more than instead of over. Good grammar. A listing of crimes as it appeared in a prior draft. The defendant could have been charged with violating a multitude of federal crimes including and then listing of the crimes that are in the plea agreement and then also attaching the letter to Pambondi and the board's resolution. The net. No, just okay. I'm glad I went over that. No, I understood there were more than that that was all the other potential crimes. It was to be added in there as well. I said that. Okay, so I thought there were two things, the sentencing of other like crimes and some additional language about charges that could have been brought on other crimes. I believe it's the same thing. We're talking about the same thing. It's the plea agreement referenced that by pleading guilty to the single count of bribery in connection with the program funded by federal funds, that the US government could not then prosecute for, gosh, violations of 18 USC 201 bribery of public officials, 371 conspiracy to commit offenses against the United States, six x x six, after bribery concerning programs receiving federal funds, etc. Right, that's the language I would be adding if this motion passes I'm certain that I think this detracts from that opportunity. Understood. Thank you. All right. do we have any other business? No commenters or anything? All right. Then I'm simply going to adjourn the meeting and go to dinner. Thank you all. Mr. Chairman, before the board does adjourn, let me just give the report out. There was no reportable action taken. So, pursuant to government code section 5957B and section 5957.6. The board did meet in close session to discuss the item's reference on the special meeting agenda. SCS1 and CS2. The board took no reportable action today. Thank you. Okay. Same thing as saying nothing.