New Trial Ordered for Teen-Ager Who Got Life Term for Kidnaping

A young man sentenced to life in prison in connection with the kidnap for ransom of a girl five years ago was “coerced” by co-defendants into not testifying and must be retried, appellate justices ruled Monday.

In a unanimous opinion, the 4th District Court of Appeal in Santa Ana ruled that “there was a close question” whether Lang Van Nguyen, who was 16 at the time, “participated voluntarily” in the kidnaping. His testimony, the justices said, probably would have resulted in a more favorable verdict.

Dennis M. McNerney, Lang Van Nguyen’s trial lawyer, said he was delighted.

“What happened to the little girl was a bad thing. But a life sentence was just too severe a punishment for (Lang Van Nguyen’s) role,” McNerney said.

Lang Van Nguyen was one of six suspects--five men and a woman--arrested in the Sept. 21, 1982, kidnaping of 11-year-old Ahn Dao Nguyen. The girl and her 8-year-old brother, Tin Thanh Nguyen, were walking to school together in Santa Ana when two of the defendants grabbed them and pulled them toward a van. The boy got away and reported the crime.

The girl was rescued the next day after an intense police investigation that involved a ransom dropped off by an undercover policewoman. The kidnapers, convinced that the girl’s family was well off because the grandmother had owned her own jewelry store in Vietnam, had demanded 200 ounces of gold for the girl’s safe return.

Lang Van Nguyen and another defendant, Xuan Le, were arrested by Santa Ana police when they tried to pick up the ransom. After threats from the Santa Ana police, which officers testified about in court, Lang Van Nguyen told them where the girl was being kept.

Two other defendants, Minh Nguyen and the woman, Lan Rolsen, were arrested at the house where the blindfolded girl was being kept in a locked bedroom.

Another defendant, Ha Son Bui, fled the state and was captured in Oregon. He was granted immunity to testify against the others. The sixth defendant, Binh Tu Vong, was caught later and is awaiting trial.

Lan Rolsen, Lang Van Nguyen, Minh Nguyen and Xuan Le were all convicted of kidnaping for ransom. While Rolsen received a five-year sentence and is now out on parole, the other three were sentenced to life in prison.

McNerney argued at the trial that Lang Van Nguyen had been coerced and had acted under duress.

The appellate court agreed. Justice Thomas F. Crosby Jr. noted that the kidnaper who testified under immunity, Ha Son Bui, told the jury that he and Lang Van Nguyen had been given no choice but to go along.

“Lang’s trial testimony would have confirmed that of the prosecution’s own star witness (Bui),” Crosby stated.

McNerney said that he tried to get Lang Van Nguyen to testify on his own behalf but that the young man refused.

“He told me that he would rather go to prison than be dead,” McNerney said.

The appellate court agreed that McNerney’s client was probably coerced into not testifying.

“Lang was a teen-ager on trial with older individuals who, in all charity, have earned the label thugs,” Crosby wrote. “He was housed in the same jail with them, languished in the same holding cells during breaks in trial and was essentially at their mercy during much of every day.”