California
Official pleads guilty to bribery charge in COVID funds scheme
SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) — A high-ranking elected official in Southern California’s Orange County has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bribery in a far-reaching scheme that misused COVID-19 relief funds that should have been used to feed the elderly.
Andrew Do, a county supervisor who recently resigned his post, entered the plea in federal court in Santa Ana, California, on Thursday under an agreement with federal prosecutors.
Do, 61, apologized to his family and people who depended on him in a statement he read in court.
“I have great sorrow for my actions,” he said.
Authorities said Do took more than half a million dollars in bribes while helping ensure federal COVID-relief funds were channeled to an organization that claimed to be feeding elderly and disabled people. The group, Viet America Society, where Do’s daughter, Rhiannon Do, was listed as an officer, didn’t spend most of the money it received for the meals on providing them, authorities said, adding some of the funds were spent on real estate.
The case comes in a long-running investigation into Viet America Society and as Orange County — which is home to more than 3 million people between Los Angeles and San Diego — filed a civil lawsuit saying the group misused federal funds.
Federal officials said only 15% of more than $9 million funneled to the group went to provide meals. Authorities said the group also received $1 million for a local Vietnam War memorial, which has yet to be completed.
In the investigation, authorities seized more than $2 million. Officials declined to immediately say how the rest of the money received by the group was used.
“This is an ongoing investigation,” Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer told reporters after Thursday’s court hearing. Spitzer said authorities were committed to recovering assets obtained in connection with the scheme and returning misused funds to the federal government.
Andrew Do came to the country as a Vietnamese refugee and grew up in Orange County before attending college and law school. He went on to become a prosecutor and city councilmember and later won a seat on Orange County’s five-person board of supervisors representing a cluster of communities, including surf-friendly Huntington Beach.
Do, a Republican, recently resigned from the board. He was already term-limited, and his seat is up for election next week.
Do is scheduled to be sentenced on March 31.
Authorities have said Rhiannon Do is cooperating with the investigation under an agreement with prosecutors and won’t be charged.
California
LA County sues Pepsi and Coca-Cola over bottles
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Los Angeles County is taking on Pepsi and Coke for their role in plastic pollution.
In a lawsuit filed Wednesday, the county alleged PepsiCo and Coca-Cola companies have misled the public about the recyclability of their plastic bottles and downplayed the negative environmental and health impacts of plastic disposal.
“Coke and Pepsi need to stop the deception and take responsibility for the plastic pollution problems your products are causing,” LA County supervisor Lindsey Horvath said in a statement. “Los Angeles County will continue to address the serious environmental impacts caused by companies engaging in misleading and unfair business practices.”
Coca-Cola owns brands like Dasani, Fanta, Sprite, Vitamin Water, and Smartwater, while PepsiCo owns Gatorade, Aquafina, Mountain Dew, and more. The two companies have been ranked as the world’s top plastic polluters for five consecutive years, and Coca-Cola has taken the number one spot for six years, according to global environmental group Break Free From Plastic.
PepsiCo produces approximately 2.5 million metric tons of plastic and Coca-Cola produces approximately 3.224 million metric tons of plastic annually, according to Break Free from Plastic.
A European Union consumer protection group and environmental organizations filed a legal complaint against Coca-Cola, Nestle, and Danone last November, accusing them of being misleading when representing packaging as 100% recycled or 100% recyclable.
The LA lawsuit said Coca-Cola and PepsiCo have employed “disinformation campaigns” for consumers to purchase single-use plastic, believing them to be recyclable and less harmful to the environment.
It alleged that both companies promised to create a “circular economy” for its bottles, in which plastic bottles can be recycled and reused an endless number of times, while in reality plastic bottles can only be recycled once, if at all.
The American Beverage Association, which PepsiCo and Coca-Cola are a part of, denied the lawsuit’s accusations about their plastic bottle recycling labels.
“The allegation that our packaging is not and will not be recycled is simply not true,” the group’s spokesperson William Dermody said in a statement.
Dermody said California had a 71% bottle recycling rate in 2023, one of the highest in the country, and that their bottles are “designed to be recycled and remade and can include up to 100% recycled plastic.”
In 2022 alone, an estimated 121,324 to 179,656 tons of plastic waste leaked into the land and ocean in California, and plastics make up seven of the top 10 litter products found on beaches, the lawsuit states.
A big part of the problem is microplastics.
Plastics that have leaked into the environment eventually disintegrate into tiny pieces of plastic measuring five millimeters or less. They can affect soil and plant growth, marine and fish life, and are nearly impossible to remove from the environment, the lawsuit states.
Some Australian researchers, on behalf of the World Wildlife Fund, calculated in 2019 that many people each week consume roughly 5 grams of plastic from common food and beverages, and microplastics have been found in body tissues and organs. Though research is still limited overall, there are growing concerns that microplastics in the body could potentially be linked to heart disease, Alzheimer’s and dementia, and other problems.
The lawsuit is seeking a court order to stop the companies’ “unfair and deceptive business practices” as well as restitution for consumers and civil penalties of up to $2,500 per violation.
In February 2020, environmental nonprofit Earth Island Institute filed a lawsuit in California asking for damages and an order for Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Nestle USA, Procter & Gamble and six other companies to clean up the plastic waste they should be held responsible for.
New York state also sued PepsiCo last November for its role in creating the plastic waste that littering the Buffalo River, which empties into Lake Erie and supplies the city of Buffalo’s drinking water. A judge dismissed the case Thursday, stating in a court filing that there was no “failure to warn” the public on plastic-related dangers and that there was no cause of action to punish the companies for the actions of a third party — people who litter.
Florida
Ex-Disney worker accused of hacking computer menus to add profanities, errors
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — A former worker hacked servers at Walt Disney World after being fired in order to manipulate computer menus by changing prices, adding profanities and altering notifications to wrongly declare some items as safe for people with allergies, according to a federal criminal complaint.
The former employee was arrested last week following an investigation by the FBI. His court-appointed attorney, David Haas, said Thursday that his client intended to plea not guilty once a formal indictment has been filed. In the meantime, he was being held in jail until at least a bond hearing set for next week.
In a motion seeking his release, Haas said that his client had struggled with mental health issues since childhood and was currently seeing a psychiatrist.
“He is not receiving any mental health counseling or treatment in jail,” the attorney said in the motion.
Disney said Thursday it wasn’t commenting on the case. Disney caught the changes before the menus were shipped to restaurants, including the allergen information, with “potentially fatal consequences depending on the severity of the customers’ allergies,” the complaint said.
Disney was forced to take its menu creation program offline for more than a week, and the company says the attacks cost at least $150,000.
An internal investigation by Disney determined that the worker who was fired last June from his job as a menu production manager was a potential suspect. The termination was “contentious and not considered to be amicable,” and his job responsibilities included the creation and publishing of menus for the company’s entire restaurant portfolio, the criminal complaint said.
Only workers in his position or similar positions “would have the accesses and knowledge to carry out the attacks,” the complaint said.
The former Disney worker denied any wrongdoing when FBI agents searched his house last month.
Georgia
State high court upholds dismissal of lawsuit over protests at Capitol
ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia’s highest court on Thursday upheld a lower court’s dismissal of a lawsuit filed by a former state lawmaker, a current state lawmaker and several others who were arrested while protesting at the state Capitol.
U.S. Rep. Nikema Williams, who was a state senator at the time, was among 15 people arrested in November 2018 while calling for uncounted ballots to be tallied. Unofficial election results at the time showed Republican Brian Kemp with a slim lead over Democrat Stacey Abrams in the race for governor, but Abrams maintained that enough uncounted absentee, mail-in and provisional ballots remained to force a runoff. Kemp was ultimately declared the winner and became governor.
Separately, state Rep. Park Cannon was arrested March 25, 2021, after knocking on the door of the governor’s office as he made livestreamed comments in support of a sweeping new election law he’d just signed.
Williams and Cannon, both Democrats, and several others sued the Georgia Department of Public Safety officers who were involved in the arrests or who they said were responsible for enforcement decisions. They argued that the law used to arrest them violated free-speech protections in the Georgia Constitution and is unconstitutionally vague. They also argued that the law was unconstitutionally used on them because they had no intention to disrupt a session of the General Assembly and did not do so.
A Fulton County superior court judge dismissed those claims. The Georgia Supreme Court unanimously upheld that dismissal.
Justice John Ellington wrote in the opinion that the allegations in the lawsuit were not sufficient to support a declaration that the law “is facially unconstitutionally overbroad or vague under Georgia law.”
“Construed according to their plain and unambiguous terms, these provisions do not prohibit a substantial amount of protected speech relative to their plainly legitimate sweep of prohibiting conduct likely to prevent or disrupt legislative business,” Ellington wrote.
Presiding Justice Nels Peterson wrote a concurring opinion that identified constitutional problems with the law, saying “the State should not confuse this limited victory with a clean bill of health for the statute.”
“The statute is seriously flawed. Those charged with its enforcement should take care to avoid those flaws, and the General Assembly should seriously consider revising it,” he wrote.
Official pleads guilty to bribery charge in COVID funds scheme
SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) — A high-ranking elected official in Southern California’s Orange County has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bribery in a far-reaching scheme that misused COVID-19 relief funds that should have been used to feed the elderly.
Andrew Do, a county supervisor who recently resigned his post, entered the plea in federal court in Santa Ana, California, on Thursday under an agreement with federal prosecutors.
Do, 61, apologized to his family and people who depended on him in a statement he read in court.
“I have great sorrow for my actions,” he said.
Authorities said Do took more than half a million dollars in bribes while helping ensure federal COVID-relief funds were channeled to an organization that claimed to be feeding elderly and disabled people. The group, Viet America Society, where Do’s daughter, Rhiannon Do, was listed as an officer, didn’t spend most of the money it received for the meals on providing them, authorities said, adding some of the funds were spent on real estate.
The case comes in a long-running investigation into Viet America Society and as Orange County — which is home to more than 3 million people between Los Angeles and San Diego — filed a civil lawsuit saying the group misused federal funds.
Federal officials said only 15% of more than $9 million funneled to the group went to provide meals. Authorities said the group also received $1 million for a local Vietnam War memorial, which has yet to be completed.
In the investigation, authorities seized more than $2 million. Officials declined to immediately say how the rest of the money received by the group was used.
“This is an ongoing investigation,” Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer told reporters after Thursday’s court hearing. Spitzer said authorities were committed to recovering assets obtained in connection with the scheme and returning misused funds to the federal government.
Andrew Do came to the country as a Vietnamese refugee and grew up in Orange County before attending college and law school. He went on to become a prosecutor and city councilmember and later won a seat on Orange County’s five-person board of supervisors representing a cluster of communities, including surf-friendly Huntington Beach.
Do, a Republican, recently resigned from the board. He was already term-limited, and his seat is up for election next week.
Do is scheduled to be sentenced on March 31.
Authorities have said Rhiannon Do is cooperating with the investigation under an agreement with prosecutors and won’t be charged.
California
LA County sues Pepsi and Coca-Cola over bottles
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Los Angeles County is taking on Pepsi and Coke for their role in plastic pollution.
In a lawsuit filed Wednesday, the county alleged PepsiCo and Coca-Cola companies have misled the public about the recyclability of their plastic bottles and downplayed the negative environmental and health impacts of plastic disposal.
“Coke and Pepsi need to stop the deception and take responsibility for the plastic pollution problems your products are causing,” LA County supervisor Lindsey Horvath said in a statement. “Los Angeles County will continue to address the serious environmental impacts caused by companies engaging in misleading and unfair business practices.”
Coca-Cola owns brands like Dasani, Fanta, Sprite, Vitamin Water, and Smartwater, while PepsiCo owns Gatorade, Aquafina, Mountain Dew, and more. The two companies have been ranked as the world’s top plastic polluters for five consecutive years, and Coca-Cola has taken the number one spot for six years, according to global environmental group Break Free From Plastic.
PepsiCo produces approximately 2.5 million metric tons of plastic and Coca-Cola produces approximately 3.224 million metric tons of plastic annually, according to Break Free from Plastic.
A European Union consumer protection group and environmental organizations filed a legal complaint against Coca-Cola, Nestle, and Danone last November, accusing them of being misleading when representing packaging as 100% recycled or 100% recyclable.
The LA lawsuit said Coca-Cola and PepsiCo have employed “disinformation campaigns” for consumers to purchase single-use plastic, believing them to be recyclable and less harmful to the environment.
It alleged that both companies promised to create a “circular economy” for its bottles, in which plastic bottles can be recycled and reused an endless number of times, while in reality plastic bottles can only be recycled once, if at all.
The American Beverage Association, which PepsiCo and Coca-Cola are a part of, denied the lawsuit’s accusations about their plastic bottle recycling labels.
“The allegation that our packaging is not and will not be recycled is simply not true,” the group’s spokesperson William Dermody said in a statement.
Dermody said California had a 71% bottle recycling rate in 2023, one of the highest in the country, and that their bottles are “designed to be recycled and remade and can include up to 100% recycled plastic.”
In 2022 alone, an estimated 121,324 to 179,656 tons of plastic waste leaked into the land and ocean in California, and plastics make up seven of the top 10 litter products found on beaches, the lawsuit states.
A big part of the problem is microplastics.
Plastics that have leaked into the environment eventually disintegrate into tiny pieces of plastic measuring five millimeters or less. They can affect soil and plant growth, marine and fish life, and are nearly impossible to remove from the environment, the lawsuit states.
Some Australian researchers, on behalf of the World Wildlife Fund, calculated in 2019 that many people each week consume roughly 5 grams of plastic from common food and beverages, and microplastics have been found in body tissues and organs. Though research is still limited overall, there are growing concerns that microplastics in the body could potentially be linked to heart disease, Alzheimer’s and dementia, and other problems.
The lawsuit is seeking a court order to stop the companies’ “unfair and deceptive business practices” as well as restitution for consumers and civil penalties of up to $2,500 per violation.
In February 2020, environmental nonprofit Earth Island Institute filed a lawsuit in California asking for damages and an order for Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Nestle USA, Procter & Gamble and six other companies to clean up the plastic waste they should be held responsible for.
New York state also sued PepsiCo last November for its role in creating the plastic waste that littering the Buffalo River, which empties into Lake Erie and supplies the city of Buffalo’s drinking water. A judge dismissed the case Thursday, stating in a court filing that there was no “failure to warn” the public on plastic-related dangers and that there was no cause of action to punish the companies for the actions of a third party — people who litter.
Florida
Ex-Disney worker accused of hacking computer menus to add profanities, errors
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — A former worker hacked servers at Walt Disney World after being fired in order to manipulate computer menus by changing prices, adding profanities and altering notifications to wrongly declare some items as safe for people with allergies, according to a federal criminal complaint.
The former employee was arrested last week following an investigation by the FBI. His court-appointed attorney, David Haas, said Thursday that his client intended to plea not guilty once a formal indictment has been filed. In the meantime, he was being held in jail until at least a bond hearing set for next week.
In a motion seeking his release, Haas said that his client had struggled with mental health issues since childhood and was currently seeing a psychiatrist.
“He is not receiving any mental health counseling or treatment in jail,” the attorney said in the motion.
Disney said Thursday it wasn’t commenting on the case. Disney caught the changes before the menus were shipped to restaurants, including the allergen information, with “potentially fatal consequences depending on the severity of the customers’ allergies,” the complaint said.
Disney was forced to take its menu creation program offline for more than a week, and the company says the attacks cost at least $150,000.
An internal investigation by Disney determined that the worker who was fired last June from his job as a menu production manager was a potential suspect. The termination was “contentious and not considered to be amicable,” and his job responsibilities included the creation and publishing of menus for the company’s entire restaurant portfolio, the criminal complaint said.
Only workers in his position or similar positions “would have the accesses and knowledge to carry out the attacks,” the complaint said.
The former Disney worker denied any wrongdoing when FBI agents searched his house last month.
Georgia
State high court upholds dismissal of lawsuit over protests at Capitol
ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia’s highest court on Thursday upheld a lower court’s dismissal of a lawsuit filed by a former state lawmaker, a current state lawmaker and several others who were arrested while protesting at the state Capitol.
U.S. Rep. Nikema Williams, who was a state senator at the time, was among 15 people arrested in November 2018 while calling for uncounted ballots to be tallied. Unofficial election results at the time showed Republican Brian Kemp with a slim lead over Democrat Stacey Abrams in the race for governor, but Abrams maintained that enough uncounted absentee, mail-in and provisional ballots remained to force a runoff. Kemp was ultimately declared the winner and became governor.
Separately, state Rep. Park Cannon was arrested March 25, 2021, after knocking on the door of the governor’s office as he made livestreamed comments in support of a sweeping new election law he’d just signed.
Williams and Cannon, both Democrats, and several others sued the Georgia Department of Public Safety officers who were involved in the arrests or who they said were responsible for enforcement decisions. They argued that the law used to arrest them violated free-speech protections in the Georgia Constitution and is unconstitutionally vague. They also argued that the law was unconstitutionally used on them because they had no intention to disrupt a session of the General Assembly and did not do so.
A Fulton County superior court judge dismissed those claims. The Georgia Supreme Court unanimously upheld that dismissal.
Justice John Ellington wrote in the opinion that the allegations in the lawsuit were not sufficient to support a declaration that the law “is facially unconstitutionally overbroad or vague under Georgia law.”
“Construed according to their plain and unambiguous terms, these provisions do not prohibit a substantial amount of protected speech relative to their plainly legitimate sweep of prohibiting conduct likely to prevent or disrupt legislative business,” Ellington wrote.
Presiding Justice Nels Peterson wrote a concurring opinion that identified constitutional problems with the law, saying “the State should not confuse this limited victory with a clean bill of health for the statute.”
“The statute is seriously flawed. Those charged with its enforcement should take care to avoid those flaws, and the General Assembly should seriously consider revising it,” he wrote.
