QuachGate: It’s A Bloomin Onion

Most good stories have a main component. You pull back one layer, only to find another. Call me crazy, but I think I may have stumbled on to a Bloomin Onion with this whole Andy Quach DUI story.

At first glance, the story of Andy Quach falling asleep at the wheel of his Mercedes S550 on Saturday night, mowing down a power pole, smashing into a concrete block wall, and getting arrested on suspicion of DUI, appeared to be a story about a single vehicle accident.

Turns out things are not always what they appear. Two and a half days after the accident, we learn that omitted from the initial Westminster PD press announcement was the fact that another vehicle had been involved in the incident. This would be a seemingly insignificant omission if the Police had learned after a couple days of investigation another car was involved. But given the fact that the people were treated at the scene by paramedics, one has to wonder how they simply forgot to include that information.

In an earlier post (QuachGate: Driving Into Power) I mentioned rumors about there possibly being a passenger in the car with Councilman Quach at the time of the accident. The police statements indicate that Quach was alone. But then again, they initially forgot to mention that there was another car involved. On the surface there seems to be no reason to suspect that anyone else was in the car with Quach.

Well in digging around I did confirm a couple of things. First, Andy Quach is in fact a fundraising consultant for Van Tran’s Congressional campaign. As of the reports filed for the last quarter, Tran owes Quach $2,000 for his services. Second, I have learned that indeed Andy Quach was working for Van Tran on Saturday night.

Specifically, my sources indicate that Quach accompanied Assemblyman Tran, and fellow Westminster Councilman Tyler Diep to a meeting with current and potential donors for Tran’s Congressional Campaign at the Citryst Restaurant located at 15440 Brookhurst in Westminster. The three met with several donors including (according to my sources) Jenny Tang whose husband Gary owns Westminster Press, and Nhon Newton Tran owner of Pho 54 a neighboring restaurant to Citryst. Newton Tran is listed as a $1,000 contributor to Van Tran’s Congressional campaign. The private dinner meeting was supposedly an effort by Tran to patch up differences with old allies.

The OC Register has reported that Quach said he was on his way home after having dinner with friends when the crash occurred. Okay, Let’s take his statement at face value and presume he was telling the truth and he had been nowhere else, and was on his way home directly from that “dinner with friends.”

According to the campaign finance reports filed by Van Tran, Councilman Quach lives at 10251 Finchley Avenue in Westminster. As you can see from the map below, to get from Citryst (A) to his home the most direct route would be to travel north on Brookhurst.

So why then was Quach across town on McFadden hitting a car traveling eastbound on McFadden. I am assuming at this point that Quach was traveling westbound on McFadden. I need to confirm what direction he was actually traveling from the police report, which I have yet to get my hands on.

Well, I may have a possible reason why Quach was traveling away from his home while on the way home. Since Assemblyman Van Tran lives in Sacramento and not in his district, he rarely drives himself around town when he is in OC, his staff does that for him. It is likely that Quach, was Tran’s driver for this fundraising dinner. Accepting this premise then Quach would have been driving Tran home from the dinner. It is also likely that, since alcohol was consumed at the dinner, he would have chosen a route with limited traffic to get to Tran’s parent’s home(C) off of Magnolia between Bolsa and Westminster.

If Quach were driving Tran home (C) via McFadden and missed the right turn on to Magnolia, it is possible that he decided to hang a U-Turn on McFadden (B), clipped the other car, and BANG we have our accident.

I know it seems crazy. But the only way it makes sense for Councilman Quach to be where he was, given what he said he was doing before the accident, would be for him to have had a reason to be travelling in that direction. Given the routes and destinations possible based upon what we know at this point, Ithink it is reasonable to suspect that Quach might have been driving Assemblyman Tran home when the accident occurred.

So I’ve got to wonder; has anyone seen Van Tran in the last couple of days? Why didn’t Tyler Diep mention in his comments to the media that he had been with Quach on Saturday night? 

Again, Lou Dobbs says it best; “So many questions remain.”

Something tells me this story isn’t over by a long-shot.