Sheng Thao, the former mayor of Oakland, California has been indicted by a federal grand jury, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
The indictment comes seven months after an FBI raid on Thao’s home and two months after she was recalled by voters in Oakland.
The anonymous source interviewed by the Chronicle added that the formal announcement of the indictment is scheduled to happen on Friday, so little is known about what exactly Thao will be charged with. On Thursday the US attorney’s office issued a press advisory stating that the FBI, US Postal Service and US Internal Revenue Service will reveal a “significant law enforcement action”, reported Oaklandside, a local news outlet.
Thao’s brief tenure as the mayor of Oakland has been marked with controversy that culminated in her being removed from the office via a recall. The district attorney was also recalled during that election. Thao fired Oakland’s police chief Leronne Armstrong in February 2023. She argued that she lost confidence in Armstrong after an investigation implicated him in systemic failures within the department and after he publicly accused the federal watchdog of corruption, without evidence, the Guardian reported last October.
She was also accused of being soft on crime which her critics say contributed to the loss of the baseball team the Oakland Athletics and the departure of chain restaurants In-N-Out and Denny’s.
Following the June FBI raid, Thao denied any wrongdoing and argued that the raid was suspiciously timed since it came days after backers of a mayoral recall were informed by the city clerk that they had collected enough signatures to qualify for the ballot, the Guardian reported last June.
Related: An unlikely Oakland mayor is fighting for political survival amid a billionaire-backed recall
Thao was elected as Oakland’s mayor in 2022, becoming the first Hmong American woman to lead a major US city and the youngest Oakland mayor in 75 years. Prior to that, she had a built a long reputation of community involvement and activism and had served as an intern for Oakland’s vice-mayor Rebecca Kaplan. She had pledged to fill vacancies in Oakland’s corruption-plagued police force and vowed to invest in violence prevention programs.
Thao served just 18 months as mayor before a recall effort was launched – the first in the city in more than a century – bankrolled by wealthy tech and crypto executives. She was ousted in the November election.
The Guardian reached out to Thao’s attorney Jeff Tsai for comment on the reported incoming indictment but did not get a response at the time of publication. Tsai told the Mercury News that neither he nor Thao had been contacted by the US attorney’s office and was unaware of new movement into the federal investigation.