Parents Tell of a Mystery Solved : Justice: Vietnamese couple hoped for son’s return for 4 years. He had been sentenced to a Texas prison when he was 13.

The Moreno Valley parents of a Vietnamese teen-ager who spent nearly four years in a Texas prison without contacting them because he feared trouble might come to the family recounted Monday how they learned of his whereabouts and their hope for his return to California.

Their eldest son, Luan Van Hoang, was 13 years old when he lied about his age in Texas in early 1986, was tried as an adult and convicted of armed robbery, and received a sentence of 38 years in state prison.

The boy gave an alias and claimed he was 18 to avoid being returned to juvenile hall in El Toro. He had escaped from that facility after being sent there as a 12-year-old for stealing a car in Garden Grove. Friends had advised him he would get probation; instead he was sent to the maximum-security Wynne Unit in Huntsville with no prospect of getting out for at least 13 years.

He was convicted of one count of aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon. Witnesses testified that he tied them up and beat them during the robbery of a suburban Dallas residence, according to Lee Hight, the lawyer appointed to represent him then. He pleaded guilty to three other similar crimes in exchange for 10-year sentences to run concurrently.

The youth’s father, Tien Van Hoang, 46, said the family did not know his whereabouts when Orange County authorities came looking for him after he escaped from juvenile hall. It was not until a friend who had been in jail with the boy called the family last year that they learned his fate.

And since the family had moved from Garden Grove to Moreno Valley, near Riverside, Luan was not sure where they were either. Besides, the father said, “(Luan) didn’t want to bother the family; he feared trouble might come to the family.”

The elder Hoang, who worked at a fast-food restaurant to support his family until illness forced him onto welfare last year, said the family--which had emigrated to the United States from Vietnam in 1984--had worried but felt helpless. They had little money, no knowledge of the U.S. legal system, and did not know where to turn, he said.

“I had eight (other) kids to feed and one is just not home. I would like to know where he is but I had to work,” the father said in Vietnamese. The children range in age from 2 to 14.

Hoang said that last summer, after learning that his son was in prison, he “scraped up enough money” to go visit him. During a two-hour reunion, he said, “my son was very sad and regretted what he did.” But Hoang said his son had earned his high school degree, learned how to bake and was learning other skills.

Since then Luan and his family have exchanged several letters a week. “He did not tell of suffering but a friend (another inmate) wrote and said he had been beaten up and that life in jail is very dangerous,” the father said in a telephone interview. His mother choked back tears as she attempted to describe the years of not knowing what had happened to Luan.

The Hoangs said they have not been contacted by Texas authorities.

But the youth’s lawyer contacted them several days ago after learning Luan’s real identity and age. The lawyer told The Times late Monday he had no idea of what had happened until last week. “The first I knew was when a reporter contacted me,” he said.

“All this would have been prevented by his telling the truth,” Hight said. “It would have been the answer to my prayers as his attorney, because Texas wasn’t very hard on juveniles back in ’86.” He said Luan had given his age as 18 in signed confessions.

After reviewing documents that show Luan was a juvenile, Dallas Dist. Atty. John Vance on Friday took steps to return the boy to Dallas to determine what should be done.

A bench warrant was issued by the original trial judge ordering Luan’s transfer to Dallas for a hearing later this week. But no one seems sure what will happen next.

“It’s like a baseball game rained out in the fourth inning,” Hight said. “If we win (and establish that Hoang was wrongly tried as an adult), then everything that has gone on before would be thrown out--I think.” He said he has agreed to represent the family and assumed it would be for free.

Whether Luan now could be retried as a juvenile raises questions of double jeopardy, Hight added. Finding the original witnesses would also pose problems, he said.

“Everybody’s gonna have to sit back and say, ‘What the hell do we do now?’ ” he said.

Neither the district attorney handling the case nor the trial judge, Jack Hampton, could be reached Monday, a government holiday.

Meanwhile, Luan’s family said they long for his return to California, even if he has to do time in a state prison here, and expressed hope that his sentence would be reduced.