Suspect’s Plea Averts Trial, Reopening of Vietnamese Schism

Averting a trial that threatened to rip open old war wounds, a Vietnamese refugee on Thursday effectively pleaded guilty to attempted murder in connection with what prosecutors describe as a failed assassination attempt.

The surprise development in Superior Court in Santa Ana means that Be Tu Van Tran, 33, could be sentenced next month to up to 9 years in prison. But the Costa Mesa man’s lawyer said he is confident from discussions with the judge that Tran will face only a few months in jail and probation.

An ardent anti-Communist whose family was jailed by the Hanoi regime, Tran had acknowledged in a disputed admission to police that he shot and seriously wounded a fellow refugee who had been quoted publicly as favoring normalized relations with the Communist government in Vietnam.

Prosecutors portrayed Tran as a cadet in a dangerous right-wing reactionary Vietnamese group that has said its aim is to “exterminate” Communists and “restore” the Vietnamese homeland. Tran was tried first in 1986, but a mistrial was declared because of juror misconduct.

While Tran has never publicly retracted his admission that “I shoot him, I accept responsibility,” his lawyer maintains that Tran had nothing to do with the March, 1986, assault on Tran Khanh Van in Westminster.

A former Saigon housing minister, Van established a successful local real estate business but drew the ire of some refugees when he was quoted in a Los Angeles Times Magazine piece as suggesting that working with Hanoi’s future leaders was “the only way to change Vietnam’s repressive Marxism.”

Tran accepted responsibility for the shooting of Van--and claimed authorship of an execution order against “the traitor, lackey of Vietnamese Communists”--only as a “badge of honor” in the fight against communism, defense attorney Robert Weinberg said in earlier interviews. He depicted the soft-spoken truck driver as a political martyr.

Indeed, Tran was seen as a hero by some in Little Saigon, attracting financial support for his defense and becoming the subject of a laudatory book. As a result, his plea in court Thursday drew mixed emotions from supporters.

Tran Minh Cong, a prominent local refugee who is secretary general of the Orange County-based Movement for Human Rights in Vietnam, said he doubts Tran shot Van, but he thinks Tran’s plea was for the best.

Pointing to the intense and sometimes divisive feelings that the Tran case has stirred among local refugees, Cong said: “People can leave this all behind and go on with their lives.”

Superior Court Judge Robert R. Fitzgerald indicated that was his intent when, during pretrial motions in the case Wednesday, he surprised attorneys by suggesting they avoid a trial altogether. “It is the court’s hope that we can settle this case and perhaps heal some of the wounds in the Vietnamese community,” Fitzgerald said.

The upcoming trial, anticipated anxiously by many in the local refugee community, had promised no lack of drama and tension. Prosecutors had planned to compel the alleged driver in the attack to testify under a grant of immunity against his close friend, Tran. They also planned to bring Van back from his new homeland in Thailand to face his alleged attacker.

The case’s heavy political overtones were clear at Tran’s first trial in 1986, when he, a defense investigator and his former lawyer wore jackets emblazoned with the name “Viet Cong Hunting Club.”

But a retrial that again would highlight the Vietnamese community’s intense feelings toward their homeland was avoided under Thursday’s court agreement.

Through a little-used legal mechanism known as a “slow plea,” Tran agreed to give up his right to a jury trial and, without putting on a defense, let Fitzgerald decide the case based on transcripts from his preliminary hearing.

In a statement in open court, Deputy Dist. Atty. Christopher Evans made clear to Tran that his agreement to the legal maneuverings was “tantamount to a plea of guilty. . . . You are in fact incriminating yourself and, in all probability, admitting you committed the crime.”

Tran, assisted by an interpreter, nodded his head and said he understood. The judge then pronounced him guilty of attempted murder.

In a brief interview that was monitored closely by his attorney, Tran said Thursday, “I feel good. I feel OK.”

While Tran would not discuss the shooting, he did point his thumb downward decisively when asked his feelings about communism and the current regime in Vietnam.

“I lived with them about 3 years in Vietnam. They make my father crazy,” he said of the Communists. He said he was the only member of his family to successfully flee the country after Saigon was taken over by the Communists in 1975.

Despite finding Tran guilty of attempted murder in the shooting, Fitzgerald acquitted the defendant on a second charge of using a firearm in the felony.

Defense attorney Weinberg maintained that the “paradox” of Fitzgerald’s finding points up the uncertainty that still surrounds Tran’s role in the attack on Van. “I’m not sure we’ll ever know what really happened,” he said.

Weinberg also asserted that in acquitting Tran on the gun charge, Fitzgerald “now clears the way for sentencing him to local jail time with the very high possibility that he’ll serve only a month or two in jail.”

Basing his remarks on conversations in chambers with the judge, Weinberg said: “We would never have been here today to cough up (by entering a plea) if we didn’t have a good feeling that probation will be granted.”

Fitzgerald, for his part, said after the court hearing that “there are no promises made” as to Tran’s jail time. He declined any further comment until Tran returns to court June 23 for sentencing.

Prosecutor Evans, while acknowledging that Tran could soon be free on probation, said he will argue that Tran should serve at least several years in state prison for the shooting.

“That’ll send a message to the community that you can’t try and kill someone for their political views in this country. You can do that in Vietnam maybe, but not here.”

Evans said he was pleasantly surprised by the turn of events that resulted in the the plea arrangement. “I never expected an option to permit the community to heal, to permit Tran--by and large--to have his freedom, and to let the court rule on the veracity of the allegations.”