Runners crossing the finish line
Runners participate in the San Jose Vietnamese Running Club's 7th annual Charity Run in 2023. Photo courtesy of the San Jose Vietnamese Running Club YouTube channel.

The San Jose Vietnamese Running Club breaks a sweat to raise money for underserved children in Vietnam. But its overseas mission has become targeted by local anti-communist campaigns — and the club may have raised money illegally.

State records show the California Franchise Tax Board suspended the running club, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, in 2021. Yet the club has reported at least $475,000 in revenue since that year, according to tax records. While suspensions stem from not filing tax returns or paying taxes and other fees, club Chair Luong Le blamed it on a former accountant who failed to submit the required paperwork. It’s illegal for an entity to do business when its tax-exempt status is suspended.

Le said he’s rectified the non-compliance, but declined to answer questions about why the club has been fundraising while suspended.

“We have been diligently working on this matter for the past one and a half years, following some challenges we faced due to our previous CPA’s oversight on submitting paperwork and keeping us up to date with our status,” Le told San José Spotlight.

The club holds races in San Jose and Orange County — both major enclaves for Vietnamese Americans and refugees from the Vietnam War — to raise money for scholarships and public benefit projects across dozens of provinces in Vietnam. The running club also does disaster relief fundraisers for people in other countries, including for victims of the Turkey and Ecuador earthquakes of 2023.

Events have been attended by public figures such as San Jose Councilmember Bien Doan, Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors candidate Betty Duong and Mayor Matt Mahan. The mayor’s office is listed on the club’s website as a sponsor of the organization. Mahan, Doan and Duong declined to comment.

The club has drawn anti-communist ire over claims it accepted an award from the Vietnamese Red Cross Society, an organization seen as close with the Vietnamese government, which is a socialist republic under singular Communist Party rule. There’s been debate for decades in California’s older Vietnamese American communities about whether to affiliate with the Vietnamese government or do business in Vietnam generally. As a result, the club has become ensnared in a community divided over perceived communist sympathizers, mainly among older war refugees. The issue is spilling over into the courtroom.

Lawsuits and disagreements

Tara Dang, a neighborhood outreach coordinator for Mahan’s office, is suing nine people for wrongly smearing her as a communist over her role as the running club’s race events and charity director.

Dang declined to comment.

One person named in her lawsuit is Nam Xuan Nguyen, a Vietnamese media journalist and anti-communist pundit. His attorney, Patrick Evans, filed a motion in response to Dang’s lawsuit that alleges the running club established overseas “sister” running clubs in 26 out of 42 Vietnamese provinces while its tax-exempt status was suspended in California.

This isn’t Evans’ first rodeo in the contentious political saga. Earlier this summer, he represented another local outspoken anti-communist, bail bonds businessman Hai Huynh. Councilmember Doan hit Huynh with a restraining order request after Huynh criticized him and confronted him in public. Doan and others tried to paint Huynh as a “Godfather” figure in Little Saigon over alleged mob ties. Dang testified in the case, and a judge ruled there was no evidence to support the claim and denied Doan’s request.

Evans said Dang made a mistake in suing his clients — a list that goes beyond Nguyen and also includes Van Le, an East Side Union High School District trustee.

“(Dang has) opened a real can of worms,” Evans told San José Spotlight. “She started the issue with her lawsuit. So in response, the defendants checked up on the running club and found it was suspended, which is really kind of astounding in my opinion. Normally that’s corrected right away, and if not, there are serious repercussions.”

After learning about the running club’s suspended tax status, Nguyen filed new papers with the Secretary of State on Sept. 23 to register  “San Jose Vietnamese Running Club” under his own name. That threw a wrench in Le’s plans to reestablish the existing running club with its original name. State records show Le was forced to reapply for 501 (c)(3) status and register a new name under a new tax identification number, “SJVRC One Mile for One Child,” on Sept. 27.
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“Once suspended, a business loses its right to maintain the name of the business,” Andrew LePage, spokesperson for the state tax board, told San José Spotlight. “In this scenario, where another organization has registered under the original business’s name, if the (first) business wants to revive and get back in good standing with (tax board), the business will need to choose a new name.”

Disputes and claims

Nguyen claims he took the rights to the “San Jose Vietnamese Running Club” name to hold Le’s organization accountable. He said he admires the work the running club does, but that its leaders aren’t transparent.

“(The running club) needs to be accountable and transparent to everyone that donated time, money and faith into its organization over the last eight years to restore confidence in its nonprofit mission,” Nguyen told San José Spotlight.

Le said the running club is “rebranding.”

“Because it’s so soon, we do not yet have anything to announce, but we will have updated information down the road,” he told San José Spotlight. “We are still doing the same work to help the less fortunate children, which is always our focus.”

Contact Brandon Pho at [email protected] or @brandonphooo on X, formerly known as Twitter.

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