The Trump administration was sued on Tuesday in two separate civil complaints in reference to an application for details about FBI Employees who worked in cases through which President Donald Trump and the Capitol Riot were involved on January sixth Websites for health authorities.

The complaints are the last in a growing variety of legal Salvos, which the Rapid Fire series of Executive Actions, which Trump and his allies have returned since his return on January 20, need to block or change into slower.

The three cases were submitted to the US district court in Washington, DC,

The first case, a category grievance, was submitted by a bunch of nine non-identified FBI agents and employees of the agency against the Ministry of Justice.

This lawsuit tries to dam the publication or distribution of knowledge within the surveys that the plaintiffs or their superiors in cases on which January 6, 2021, Capitol Riot enameling and the criminal prosecution of Capitol Riot, “their specific role” And Trump himself was in a position to fill out the criminal prosecution of “her specific role” because he had retained classified records after leaving the White House in early 2021.

In the lawsuit, the survey was issued “to identify the termination of agents or to suffer adverse employment measures”.

“When returning to the presidency, Mr. Trump instructed the Doj to carry out a review and cleansing of the FBI staff involved in these investigations and law enforcement measures,” the lawsuit said.

“This guideline is illegal and retaliation and violates the law on public service.”

The lawsuit states that the plaintiffs “fear that all or parts of a list of FBI agents who worked on January 6th by the criminals, which have now been pardoned and largen on January 6.”

The grievance states that a number of the personal data of the plaintiffs “were already convicted of January 6 that were convicted on” dark web sites “.”

A second lawsuit, which was submitted by the FBI Agents Association and 7 unnamed agents against the Doj, also determines the survey, through which information is requested as as to whether the agents worked on January sixth.

In this grievance, a judge is asked to “protect the plaintiffs from the defendant's expected decision, to uncover their personal data for Opplium and potential vigilance measures by those who examine them”.

Chris Mattei from Koskoff, Koskoff and Bieder, said a lawyer of the agents within the second lawsuit, said in a press release: “The plan of the Doj to publish the names of FBI agents that were examined on January 6 Protection of our communities and our nation.

“It is evident that the endangered disclosure is a prelude to an illegal cleansing of the FBI, which is driven exclusively by the vengeful and political motivations of the Trump government,” said Mattei. “The liberation of the names of those agents would ignite a hearth storm of harassment against them and their families, and it needs to be stopped immediately.”

CNBC requested a comment from the Doj to the suits.

The third lawsuit was submitted by the Advocacy Group Doctors for America against the Office for Personnel Management, the Department of Health and Human Services, the centers for the control and prevention of diseases as well as the food and drug administration.

This complaint questions the abrupt removal on Friday from CDC and FDA websites, “a wide selection of health-related data and other information”.

Zach Shelley, a lawyer of the legal dispute for public citizens who represents doctors for America in the lawsuit, told CNBC that “without the knowledge that the CDC and these other agencies have settled, more persons are suffering, more persons are suffering and more people will die.

Shelley said that “agencies take measures as part of the Trump administration that undermine their declared mission”.

The lawsuit states that data is repeatedly utilized by “relatives of the health professions to diagnose and treat patients and researchers to promote public health, also in clinical studies to determine the security and effectiveness of medical products”.

The data was removed two days after Charles Ezell, the reigning director of OPM, published a memo through which the Federal Authority was ordered to “terminate” programs, promote or convey gender -specific ideology “and all websites, Remove social media accounts and other media, they have this goal.

Ezell's command came more than a week after Trump signed an executive regulation entitled “Defense of girls against the extremism of gender ideology and the restoration of the biological truth of the federal government”.

The lawsuit states that the data records before this unannounced distance had been on the websites for years.

Your distance “creates a dangerous gap within the scientific data that is obtainable for surveillance and response to outbreaks of illness that deprives doctors of clinical practice and contain an important resources for communication and employment with patients,” the lawsuit said.

The CDC removes websites for its youth risk behavior monitoring system, pages that are devoted to “youth and faculty health” as well as pages for the “social weakness index” and “environmental equity index” in accordance with the lawsuit.

A report and websites were also removed in connection with HIV infections, the complaint says.

The FDA removed several pages, including one with the title “Study on Gender differences within the clinical evaluation
of medical products “and another title” diversity motion plans to enhance the enrollment of
Participants from underrepresented population groups in clinical studies. “

“The decisions of CDC, FDA and HHS to remove the web sites and data records and data records,” says the suit.

Spokesman for OPM, HHS and CDC refused to comment on the lawsuit. The FDA's media assistance office didn’t immediately answer inquiries about comments.

Think twice before sending your next text message. Or higher yet, ensure you utilize an end-to-end encryption method.

Consumers recurrently use various kinds of messaging technologies from the most important technology firms, including Apple, alphabet And Metaplatformsincluding iMessage, Google Messages, WhatsApp and SMS, but the extent of protection varies. Now the U.S. government is expressing greater concern concerning the recent massive hacker attack on the country's largest telecommunications firms.

Last month, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation revealed a campaign by hackers linked to China. Salt typhoonthat compromises AT&T And Verizonand others and was considered one of the most important hacks of US infrastructure in history. Following this alert, CISA, the National Security Agency, the FBI and international partners issued one Joint guidance to assist protect Americans. One suggestion is Use end-to-end encryptiona technique that makes communication safer.

End-to-end encryption ensures that only the intended recipients can read your messages as they travel between your phone and another person's phone. Secure messaging apps use end-to-end encryption to guard communications from hackers, surveillance, and unauthorized access, so even messaging app providers can't read your messages.

“All things being equal, if you have the ability to use a platform with end-to-end encryption, you should do so,” said Michael Hughes, chief business officer of Duality Technologies, which enables firms to guard sensitive data share and analyze using encryption.

Many consumers are unaware of their options for secure communication via messaging apps. Here are the fundamentals.

WhatsApp, Signal are amongst one of the best end-to-end options

Consumers use different messaging apps for various purposes, often without giving security a second thought. However, there are notable differences between platforms that individuals need to concentrate on.

For security reasons, free messaging apps like WhatsApp from Meta and Signal – whose co-founder was considered one of the inventors of WhatsApp – are considered one of the best because they’ve end-to-end encryption in-built. That makes these apps significantly preferable to SMS and MMS, two older messaging methods that don't offer end-to-end encryption, said Trevor Horwitz, founding father of TrustNet, a provider of cybersecurity and compliance services.

Even platforms which can be considered one of the best for end-to-end encryption have drawbacks. Signal is popular amongst many privacy enthusiasts because its mission is to not collect or store sensitive information. This could be particularly tempting for people who find themselves suspicious of WhatsApp's parent company, Facebook, and its privacy practices. The downside to Signal is that it's not as widely used as WhatsApp and in case your contacts aren't on it, you may't communicate, said Roger Grimes, an analyst at KnowBe4, a security platform provider.

There are also paid messaging apps which can be end-to-end encrypted, equivalent to Threema. It is a built-in privacy feature and no phone number or email address is required. However, it costs a number of dollars, and it may possibly be difficult to get family and friends to affix in when there are free options which can be already popular.

Most people would use encryption “if it's the default and they don't have the slightest inconvenience,” Grimes said.

RCS and iMessage

Many messaging platforms now use RCS, which stands for Rich Communication Services. It is a successor to SMS and MMS that has more advanced features and in addition offers the potential for end-to-end encryption, although not by default on all devices. For example, RCS messages using Google Messages are mechanically upgraded to end-to-end encryption, but Apple's RCS implementation on iPhones just isn’t end-to-end encrypted, Horwitz said.

For all Apple device users, the corporate's proprietary iMessage app is end-to-end encrypted, but for users who send RCS messages via other text plans, equivalent to a carrier's text option, End-to-end encryption just isn’t offered. Apple explains itself about sending messages via non-iMessage RCS options: “You are not protected from third parties reading them while they are being sent between devices.”

Additionally, not all devices are compatible with RCS and it just isn’t generally supported by carriers. There are also compatibility issues between some iPhone and Android devices that also must be resolved, Horwitz said.

Gaps in encryption in Facebook Messenger

Making things much more complicated is that technology firms have multiple messaging products, and never every application from a given vendor supports end-to-end encryption in the identical way. For example, Facebook Messenger offers end-to-end encrypted messages, but not in all cases. Accordingly FacebookSome products don’t currently support end-to-end encryption, e.g. E.g. community chats for Facebook groups, chats with firms or accounts that use business messaging tools, marketplace chats, and others.

Consumers should attempt to delve deeper into the apps they use to grasp how end-to-end encryption works for a specific app, said Deirdre Connolly, cryptography standardization research engineer at SandboxAQ, an AI applications developer. This information is commonly available within the support or privacy section of a provider's website. But even then, it may possibly be difficult to seek out and decipher. “You have to pay attention to the fine print,” Connolly said.

Google vs. Apple

Google Messages is the default messaging app on many devices running the Android operating system and is utilized by many individuals to speak. However, consumers must bear in mind that not all messages sent or received using the app are end-to-end encrypted. According to the corporate, the app supports end-to-end encryption when sending messages to other users via Google Messages via RCS. However, when communicating with an iPhone user, for instance, messages aren’t end-to-end encrypted. Text messages appear dark blue in RCS status and light-weight blue in SMS/MMS status. Users can even see a lock icon when end-to-end encryption is energetic in a conversation.

In Apple's case, communication between two iMessage users is end-to-end encrypted, but iMessage is an Apple-specific platform. This signifies that communication between iMessage users and Android device users is currently not end-to-end encrypted. A green message bubble as an alternative of a blue indicates that the message was sent via MMS/SMS as an alternative of iMessage.

A Department of Justice, actually Antitrust case against Apple The company's failure to supply end-to-end encryption outside of its iOS messaging app labels it a monopoly.

Protocols are being developed to enable end-to-end encryption between different communication platforms using RCS, but this continues to be a piece in progress. “Collaboration with key industry stakeholders is progressing well and we look forward to updating the market in the coming months,” said a spokesman for the GSMA, an industry body that’s leading these efforts.

Phone settings and ongoing risk of hacks

One thing people should do is check the settings on their phones. Many consumers have older phones and people who don't have automatic updates turned on could also be missing out on essential security updates, which could include messaging apps that enable end-to-end encryption, said Chris Henderson, senior director of threat operations at Huntress, a cybersecurity company. Additionally, if you’ve gotten a brand new phone, the settings of transferred apps is probably not migrated. If you enabled end-to-end encryption for apps in your previous phone, it's also a superb idea to envision that the settings are enabled on the brand new phone as well, Henderson said.

End-to-end encryption just isn’t foolproof because hackers can intercept users' communications in other ways, equivalent to if the device itself is compromised, Horwitz said. For security reasons, it’s also essential to maintain your devices functioning by installing all software updates, avoiding cumbersome downloads, and performing regular reboots.

Still, using end-to-end encryption is a superb practice when available. “Threat actors go where the masses go,” said Kory Daniels, global CISO at Trustwave, a provider of cybersecurity and managed security services. “If the masses still use unencrypted communication methods, [bad actors] will continue to seize the opportunity until users begin to evolve their digital behavior.”

Today is Monday, October twenty eighth, the 302nd day of 2024. There are 64 days left within the yr.

Today in history:

On October 28, 2016, the FBI dropped a political bombshell on Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign when it announced it was investigating whether emails were found on a tool belonging to disgraced former congressman Anthony Weiner, the estranged husband of considered one of Mrs. Clinton's. Huma Abedin, his closest colleague, could contain secret information.

Also on this date:

In 1636, the Massachusetts court passed an act establishing Harvard College.

In 1886, the Statue of Liberty, a present from the French people, was dedicated in New York Harbor by President Grover Cleveland.

In 1919, despite President Woodrow Wilson's veto, Congress passed the Volstead Act, which provided for the enforcement of Prohibition.

In 1922, fascism got here to Italy when Benito Mussolini took control of the federal government.

In 1936, President Franklin D. Roosevelt rededicated the Statue of Liberty to mark its fiftieth anniversary.

In 1962, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev informed the United States that he had ordered the dismantling of missile bases in Cuba; In return, the US secretly agreed to withdraw nuclear missiles from US facilities in Turkey.

In 1991, what became generally known as the “Perfect Storm” began to form lots of of miles east of Nova Scotia. During the storm, the six crew members of the Andrea Gail, a fishing boat from Gloucester, Massachusetts, were lost at sea.

In 2001, the families of victims of the September eleventh terrorist attack gathered in New York for a memorial service stuffed with prayers and songs.

In 2012, the San Francisco Giants won their second World Series title in three years by defeating the Detroit Tigers for a four-game sweep.

In 2018, the Boston Red Sox defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers to win the World Series in five games.

In 2021, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said his company would rename itself Meta to implement its virtual reality vision for the long run while maintaining the identical name for the social network itself.

In 2022, Tesla CEO Elon Musk took control of Twitter for $44 billion after a protracted legal battle and months of uncertainty.

In 2022, Paul Pelosi, the 82-year-old husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, was attacked and severely beaten by an assailant with a hammer as he broke into their San Francisco home.

Today's birthdays:

• Jazz singer Cleo Laine is 97.
• Actress Joan Plowright is 95.
• Basketball Hall of Famer Lenny Wilkens is 87.
• Actress Jane Alexander is 85.
• Actor Dennis Franz is 80.
• Actress and singer Telma Hopkins is 76.
• TV personality and Olympic gold medal decathlete Caitlyn Jenner is 75.
• Actress Annie Potts is 72.
• Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates is 69.
• Actress Daphne Zuniga (ZOO'-nih-guh) is 62.
• Actress Lauren Holly is 61.
• Talk show host and comedian Sheryl Underwood is 61.
• Football Hall of Famer Steve Atwater is 58.
• Actor-comedian Andy Richter is 58.
• Actress Julia Roberts is 57.
• Actor Jeremy Davies is 56.
• Singer Ben Harper is 55.
• Football Hall of Famer Terrell Davis is 52.
• Country singer Brad Paisley is 52.
• Actor Joaquin Phoenix is ​​50.
• Actress Gwendoline Christie is 46.
• Actor Matt Smith is 42.
• Actor Troian Bellisario is 39.
• Singer-songwriter Frank Ocean is 37.
• Tennis player Taylor Fritz is 27.
• Actor Nolan Gould is 26.

By Kathleen Ditton, Joe Roetz, Rubén Rosario | WSVN

MIAMI, Florida – A 20-year-old man and his accomplice have been charged with conspiracy to steal and launder greater than $230 million value of cryptocurrency. Federal authorities said the arrests were related to an FBI raid on a Miami mansion.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, 20-year-old Malone Lam of Miami and Los Angeles and 21-year-old Jeandiel Serrano of Los Angeles were arrested Wednesday evening.

The federal government's indictment states that the duo, together with others, orchestrated cryptocurrency thefts and laundered the proceeds through exchanges and mixing services.

A user of X, the social media platform formerly often known as Twitter, uncovered the moment Lam allegedly received greater than $230 million in stolen bitcoins from a victim in Washington, DC.

The indictment states that the suspects “used the illegally obtained cryptocurrency to purchase international travel, nightclub services, numerous luxury cars, watches, jewelry and designer handbags, and to pay for rental apartments in Los Angeles and Miami.”

The duo is accused of showing off at parties, including one which was videotaped, and showing off luxury cars and designer handbags.

Lam, a Singaporean national who goes by the web pseudonyms “Anne Hathaway” and “$$$,” and Serrano, who goes by the names “VersaceGod” and “@SkidStar,” are alleged to have accessed victims’ accounts in Washington, DC, in August and transferred cryptocurrencies into their possession, including over 4,100 of the victim’s bitcoins.

But on Wednesday evening, all of it got here to an abrupt end when FBI agents raided a mansion near Northeast 83rd Street and twelfth Avenue, near North Bayshore Drive, south of Miami Shores.

“I thought they were fireworks,” said one resident.

On Thursday evening, FBI officials confirmed that the arrests of Lam and Serrano were related to this raid.

Smoke poured out of the mansion as federal authorities raided the property through the day and investigated into the night.

7News cameras caught federal agents combing every inch of the property.

Miami City Police said they assisted FBI agents in Wednesday's raid.

Neighbors have been wondering what happened, and now there’s a solution.

“We are all leaving at the same time, so it will be peaceful for everyone tonight,” said one resident.

Lam and Serrano were scheduled to look in U.S. district courts in Florida and California on Thursday.

Click here for the most recent information on this story.

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crime

WASHINGTON (AP) — The gunman within the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump searched online for events hosted by each Trump and President Joe Biden and viewed the Pennsylvania campaign rally where he opened fire last month as a “target of opportunity,” a senior FBI official said Wednesday.

Thomas Matthew Crooks, who shot Trump from a close-by rooftop before being killed by a Secret Service sniper, had done extensive research for an attack before the shooting, a spread of events or targets, including events involving the present and former president, said Kevin Rojek, special agent in control of the FBI's Pittsburgh field office.

The latest details emerged as FBI officials said in the newest in a series of briefings on the investigation that, despite conducting nearly 1,000 interviews, that they had not yet found a motive for the July 13 attack in Butler, Pennsylvania.

“We have a clear idea of ​​the mentality, but cannot make any final statements about the motive at this point,” said Rojek.

OAKLAND — Mayor Sheng Thao is predicted to soon forged the deciding vote on a lucrative contract with an organization whose CEO did business for years with an individual now at the middle of the FBI's ongoing investigation into public corruption.

Next month, Thao could have to make a decision alone the fate of an $8 million contract extension with ABC Security Service Inc., which provides security at City Hall and other city buildings. The decision is hers for the reason that City Council vote over the summer led to a rare tie.

The impending decision could potentially give Thao the green light for a multimillion-dollar cope with an organization owned by Ana Chretien, a renowned East Bay businesswoman who already has extensive business dealings with Mario Juarez.

Real estate transactions involving one in all Chrétien's firms and Juarez – a fixture within the FBI investigation – recently caught the eye of local authorities as a part of an ongoing investigation that’s independent of the federal probe, in line with court documents.

The FBI and county authorities' investigation is ongoing, but no charges have been filed against anyone.

The federal investigation – and a related grand jury probe – became public when agents raided Thao's Oakland Hills home on June 20, setting off a political firestorm that has put her administration in jeopardy just months before a scheduled recall election this November.

A key think about the investigation appears to be Juarez, a two-time candidate for city council and longtime political operative who has been repeatedly targeted for failed business deals and mounting debts.

According to court investigative records, the Alameda County District Attorney's Office is investigating allegations that Juarez defrauded the influential Duong family out of a $1 million investment in a failed housing project called Evolutionary Homes. The Duong family, which has a contract with the town to select up the town's curbside recycling, claims Juarez didn’t deliver dozens of housing units – all made out of refurbished shipping containers – that he allegedly promised the family.

The dispute led to competing claims that each side attacked one another during a heated confrontation on the Oakland Harbor Housing Authority's offices on May 3. Less than a month later, Juarez claimed he was the goal of an assassination attempt when gunmen shot at him outside his East Oakland home — in line with police records, the shooting was “retaliation” for Juarez's involvement in a criminal investigation.

Public records show that a few of Chretien's dealings with Juarez were often conducted through Tidewater Group LLC, a lesser-known real estate company she founded 18 years ago and that Juarez allegedly represented as recently as 2021, court records show.

In February 2017, Tidewater bought a industrial property from one in all Juarez's firms for about $2.7 million, but then sold it back to a different of Juarez's firms five years later for a much higher price – $4.3 million – in line with county records.

The property, positioned near High and E. twelfth streets in East Oakland, was at the middle of several potentially fraudulent loans to Juarez which might be the topic of a current investigation by the Alameda County District Attorney's Office's Real Estate Fraud Unit. Chretian was not involved in those loans.

Also in 2017, one in all Juarez's firms sold a industrial constructing in East Oakland near seventy fifth Avenue to Chretien for $845,000. The deal proved lucrative for Juarez's company, which had bought the metal-clad warehouse lower than two months earlier for about half that price.

In one other real estate deal, an organization organized by Juarez bought a vacant lot for $50,500 in March 2019 that bordered a residential property owned by Chretien, state and county records show. Five months later, Chretien was listed as CEO of the corporate, Ciudad Real LLC, and the business and mailing addresses modified from Juarez's office to those of Chretien's security company and the Tidewater Group, records show.

About a yr later, in line with county records, Chretien began transferring the property, which lies along the Napa River, into her name.

Chretien declined several interview requests from this news organization. She officially resigned as an agent of the Tidewater Group in 2022, state records show. Juarez's attorney declined to comment and messages sent to Thao's office weren’t immediately returned.

Chretien's ABC Security Service was a politically influential company. In the Nineties and early 2000s, Chretien donated hundreds to politicians as he secured contracts with the town, the Port of Oakland and its airport. media Reports.

The company's history raised eyebrows amongst many, including the town auditor in 2011, but ABC was in a position to win the town's security contract in 2018. Since then, the corporate has helped monitor city hall, city libraries, and senior and recreation centers.

ABC has worked through similar extensions lately after plans to approve a brand new security contractor fell through as a result of changing security needs and a desire to attend for a brand new, everlasting city manager to take over the job. The most up-to-date extension expired on June 30, though the corporate's security guards still patrol city buildings.

A council vote in July to increase the contract through mid-2025 led to odd fashion, with council members Nikki Fortunado Bas, Noel Gallo, Kevin Jenkins and Dan Kalb voting in favor while Rebecca Kaplan, Janani Ramachandran and Treva Reid were either excused or absent from the vote. Council member Carroll Fife abstained, so Thao needed to forged his vote. Thao is predicted to vote through the first regular meeting in September when the council returns to session.

If approved, the contract would increase ABC's funding to just about $30 million because it took over the town's security services in 2018. It allows for a 20 percent monthly increase in the town's budgeted costs for security services, allowing the corporate to “cover necessary, unforeseen or emergency security services outside of basic services,” in line with a city report on the contract.

The city government plans to open the town's security services contract to bids from latest firms in the approaching months, before the beginning of the 2025-26 budget cycle.

The FBI has said little publicly since a series of raids on June 20 at addresses linked to Thao and the Duong family, which owns the city-contracted garbage recycling company California Waste Solutions. Thao has repeatedly insisted that they innocent and never a goal of the federal government.

Meanwhile, the district attorney's real estate fraud unit is investigating whether Juarez defaulted on a $250,000 loan to a outstanding Chinatown figure across the time he bought back the High Street property from Chrétien's Tidewater Group.

Local investigators suspect that Juarez used the High Street property as collateral for the loan – despite the fact that he had allegedly already used it as collateral for a $3 million loan from one other company called Balboa LLC. Juarez appears to have defaulted on that loan as well.

The High Street property was foreclosed on in early December 2022, with Balboa LLC filings showing it cost nearly $4 million.

Alameda County prosecutors have already charged Juarez in one other criminal case involving election mailings that Juarez allegedly orchestrated against Thao's political rivals in the ultimate days of the 2022 mayoral race.

Prosecutors say Juarez ordered the flyers from a family-owned mailing company in Oakland by writing checks for nearly $53,600 that later bounced. Investigators say Juarez had lower than $215 in his checking account on the time, court records show.

Juarez has since pleaded not guilty. His lawyer Ernie Castillo had previously described the fees brought by District Attorney Pamela Price as “politically motivated and regrettable.”

OAKLAND — A key figure within the U.S. government's sweeping investigation into public corruption can be accused of defrauding the controversial and politically well-connected Duong family of $1 million over a failed housing project, in response to newly emerged documents.

The allegations against Mario Juarez – a two-time candidate for Oakland City Council and longtime political activist – shed recent light on the close ties he had with the Duong family, which owns Oakland's recycling company. And the brand new details offer recent insight right into a dispute that escalated in early May between the 2 parties over claims the opposite party owed them money.

A month later, the FBI raided addresses related to David Duong and his son Andy Duong as a part of a sweeping investigation, including the Oakland Hills home of Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao and the headquarters of the Duong family's city-owned waste recycling company, California Waste Solutions.

Federal authorities have said little in regards to the scope of the investigation for the reason that June 20 raids. But federal grand jury subpoenas sent out last month show that investigators seem like casting a large net, demanding that town turn over records on Mayor Thao's partner Andre Jones, the previous Oakland Army Base, Thao's own calendar and Oakland Police Department phone books.

Among the businesses targeted by the federal investigation is an unknown home developer called Evolutionary Homes, founded in 2022 by Mario Juarez and David Duong. The company appears to have failed amid a growing rift between Juarez and members of the Duong family.

Juarez approached the Duong family with the concept of ​​constructing homes for homeless women and youngsters out of converted shipping containers. The company shared the identical business address because the Duongs' predominant business, CalWaste Solutions, and had a showroom on a special floor of the identical office constructing on the Port of Oakland.

Evolutionary Homes appears to have caught the eye of Oakland local authorities last winter, when Juarez tried to secure state funding for the corporate to construct container homes in Mexico and ship or truck them to the Bay Area.

But in response to authorities, the deal appears to have failed.

Andy Duong told an inspector with the Alameda County District Attorney's Office that his family initially invested $800,000 within the project for 50 container homes and that their commitment eventually rose to $1 million. However, they claimed that Juarez reneged on that investment and only built two homes before the family decided to desert the project, in response to investigative documents obtained by this news organization.

When the Duongs pressed Juarez, “he made excuses by saying he was nearby or that the cost of labor or materials was delaying things,” the investigation documents say.

The soured business relationship reached a climax on May 3, when Juarez showed up on the Duongs' offices at 1211 Embarcadero and confronted them, claiming the family owed him money to pay his staff in Mexico, authorities said. A member of the family told prosecutors that Juarez “held them for hours demanding money and they feared for their safety because he was known to carry guns,” the documents say.

Juarez's attorney later said that Juarez was attacked in the course of the altercation, which was reported to Oakland police.

Less than a month later, Juarez claimed he was the goal of an assassination attempt when gunmen fired an estimated nine shots at him as he stood outside his East Oakland home, police records show. Juarez took cover and fired 4 shots from his registered .40-caliber Glock pistol – ending the assassination attempt, which he described to police as “retaliation” for his involvement in a criminal investigation, in response to the report.

The Evolutionary Homes saga will not be the one business deal that has caught the attention of local authorities and involves Juarez, a successful businessman who has dabbled in entertainment, clean energy and real estate. He was forced to give up his real estate license in 2015 after being accused of unfair business practices, state records show.

According to investigative documents, the district attorney's real estate fraud unit is investigating whether Juarez defaulted on a quarter-million-dollar loan to a outstanding Chinatown resident nearly three years ago while misrepresenting key points of the collateral used to secure the loan.

Stewart Chen, chairman of the Oakland Chinatown Improvement Council, told investigators he did business with Juarez after Andy Duong vouched for him.

Juarez first applied to Chen for a high-interest loan of $100,000 in December 2021, which he repaid in full, in response to documents.

But problems allegedly began after Juarez obtained a second, high-interest loan for $250,000 from Chen just weeks after paying off the primary loan. When Juarez allegedly defaulted on his payments, Chen realized there was an issue with the property Juarez had used as collateral within the deal: According to the documents, it had already been used as collateral for a loan greater than 10 times as large by another person.

The East Oakland property at issue in Chen's loan was already getting used as collateral for a $3 million loan that Juarez applied for in November 2021 from an organization called Balboa LLC, in response to the documents. Chen told investigators he wouldn’t have agreed to the loans if he had known that information, and that Juarez was “hostile,” “dismissive” and “threatening” when pressed to honor the deal, in response to the documents.

In an interview, Chen confirmed that the loan was not repaid. “This is rubbish,” Chen said. “It's my money that I'm counting on for my retirement. I don't know if I'll ever see a penny of it.”

Juarez appears to have defaulted on repaying Balboa's original $3 million loan, and the property was foreclosed on in early December 2022. As a result, the deal cost Balboa LLC nearly $4 million, records show.

As a part of its investigation, the state attorney's office's real estate fraud unit has begun examining Juarez's financial investments and has signaled its intention to seize his bank records, the filing shows. His attorney, Ernie Castillo, declined to comment on the continuing investigation.

Juarez was already in legal jeopardy over one other allegation of unpaid debts.

Alameda County prosecutors charged him in January with one count of aggravated voter fraud stemming from election mail-ins that Juarez allegedly orchestrated against Thao's predominant political rival – mayoral candidate Loren Taylor – in the course of the final 10 days of the 2022 mayoral race. His attack ads also targeted mayoral candidate Ignacio De La Fuente and former Mayor Libby Schaaf.

Prosecutors say Juarez ordered the flyers from a family-owned Oakland mailing company by writing checks for nearly $53,600 that bounced because he had lower than $215 in that checking account on the time, court records show. He has since pleaded not guilty. His attorney, Castillo, has previously called District Attorney Pamela Price's charges “politically motivated and deplorable.”

A hearing to find out whether there may be enough evidence to bring the case to trial has not yet taken place.

Castillo asked a judge last week to delay the case, citing plans to file a motion to disqualify prosecutors from the case due to “vindictive” and “outrageous” conduct. That motion had not been filed as of Tuesday afternoon.

Jakob Rodgers is a veteran breaking news reporter. Call, text or encrypted message him through Signal at 510-390-2351 or email him at jrodgers@bayareanewsgroup.com.

Originally published: August 6, 2024 at 18:33