FOURTH VIETNAMESE CRIMINAL STREET GANG MEMBER SENTENCED TO LIFE IN PRISON WITHOUT PAROLE FOR 1995 COLD CASE EXECUTION-STYLE RETALIATORY MURDER

FOURTH VIETNAMESE CRIMINAL STREET GANG MEMBER SENTENCED TO LIFE IN PRISON WITHOUT PAROLE FOR 1995 COLD CASE EXECUTION-STYLE RETALIATORY MURDER

*All the defendants in this case were sentenced to life in state prison without the possibility of parole

SANTA ANA – A Vietnamese criminal street gang member was sentenced today to life in state prison without the possibility of parole for the 1995 cold case execution-style murder of a fellow gang associate in retaliation for abandoning them while committing a home invasion robbery one day earlier. Giang Thuy Nguyen, 37, Fountain Valley, was found guilty by a jury April 10, 2012, of one felony count of murder and one felony count of conspiracy to commit murder with sentencing enhancement allegations for murder by lying in wait and committing a crime for the benefit of a criminal street gang. The sentencing enhancements for murder to avoid arrest and crime-bail-crime against Giang Nguyen were found true.

Co-defendants Anthony Paul Johnson, Jr., 37, Westminster, Tam Hung Nguyen, 47, Riverside, and Truc Ngoc Tran, 36, Santa Ana, were each found guilty by a jury April 10, 2012, of one felony count of murder and one felony count of conspiracy to commit murder with sentencing enhancement allegations for murder by lying in wait and committing a crime for the benefit of a criminal street gang. The sentencing enhancement for murder to avoid arrest against Johnson was found true. The sentencing enhancements for murder to avoid arrest and crime-bail-crime against Giang Nguyen were found true. The sentencing enhancement for the personal discharge of a firearm against Tam Nguyen was found true.

On the morning of Feb. 24, 1995, Johnson, Giang Nguyen, and fellow gang member Viet Nguyen committed a masked home invasion robbery in Huntington Beach at the home of a high school classmate of Viet Nguyen. During the robbery, Viet Nguyen fled the scene and left his fellow gang members because he believed that the victim in the residence may have recognized him. This robbery was not prosecuted, as it remained unsolved for several years and the statute of limitations has run.

On the evening of Feb. 24, 1995, Johnson, Giang Nguyen, Tam Nguyen, and Tran met at a house in Midway City and conspired to murder Viet Nguyen in retaliation for fleeing during the robbery that morning and to prevent him from implicating Johnson and Giang Nguyen in the robbery if he were to be identified by the victim and arrested.  Early in the morning on Feb. 25, 1995, Johnson and Giang Nguyen convinced Viet Nguyen to take Tam Nguyen with him in his van under the pretense of buying drugs. Giang Nguyen gave Tran the keys to another car, which Tran used to follow Viet