Man Sentenced for Murder Outside Gardena Restaurant : Courts: Lam Hong Le receives 34 years to life and a concurrent life term. The 1990 shooting spree followed an argument at a birthday party.

A man convicted of murder and attempted murder for firing a barrage of bullets at customers of a Gardena restaurant has been sentenced to 34 years to life in state prison.

Lam Hong Le, 24, sat quietly listening to a Vietnamese interpreter as Torrance Superior Court Judge Candace Cooper pronounced his sentence, which also included a second concurrent life term for the attempted murder charge.

Jurors convicted Le last month of shooting Luan Nguyen to death and seriously injuring Hoang Minh Nguyen as a birthday party broke up outside a Crenshaw Boulevard Chinese restaurant on Aug. 10, 1990.

Witnesses testified at trial that Le, who had been a guest at the party, left the restaurant after a brief argument with Luan Nguyen. Later, as guests were leaving, Le and another, unidentified man returned and sprayed the restaurant and surrounding mini-mall with bullets from two guns.

Luan Nguyen was struck several times and died about 11 p.m. at Gardena Memorial Hospital. Minh Nguyen was struck in the leg and suffered a grazing wound to his head. He recovered and later identified Le as one of his attackers.

Le eluded sheriff’s investigators and fled to Canada, where he was arrested in July, 1991, in connection with a shooting attack at a Chinese restaurant in Toronto. Canadian officials agreed to return him to the United States for trial here.

Court records show that Le was convicted in 1986 of assault with a deadly weapon for a shooting attack at a Chinese restaurant on Prairie Avenue in Hawthorne. He was paroled from state prison after serving 18 months for that attack.

“Life apparently is quite cheap to this defendant,” a probation officer wrote in a report to the court. “Basically, defendant does whatever he wants to do and goes wherever he wants to go. . . . It is clear that this is a violent young man, one who is easily angered.”

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Le submitted a handwritten note to Cooper denying any involvement in the 1990 shooting.

“Yes, Honor, I have kill nobody in my life and I don’t know nothing about this case . . . “ the note said. “It’s really hurts and I want to appeal.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Carol Najera said officials believe Le was a leader in a Vietnamese gang that tried to control South Bay gambling and conducted organized extortion of local Vietnamese businesses.

“These gangs are more analogous to the Mafia than what we usually think of as gangs,” Najera said. “They prey on others of their same ethnic background.”