Santa Ana Teen Charged in Killing of UCI Student

An 18-year-old from Santa Ana was charged Wednesday with murdering a UC Irvine engineering student and with lying in wait, a special circumstance that would make him eligible for the death penalty.

Vinh Quoc Ta was also charged with a second count of attempted murder of a young man who was a passenger in Robert Sapinoso’s car when Sapinoso, 19, of Westminster was fatally shot.

The friend, a 20-year-old student at Cypress College, was unharmed and later provided police with a detailed description of the gunman.

Sapinoso, a bashful computer whiz nicknamed “Zap” for his lightning-fast typing, and his friend were at the friend’s house in Garden Grove on Aug. 17 when they saw a passing van they believed had been involved in neighborhood vandalism days earlier. They got into Sapinoso’s car to chase it and get the license plate number.

The two had jotted down all but one digit when someone in the van got out, walked up to Sapinoso’s car at a stop light on Newland Street and opened fire, killing Sapinoso. The friend was not injured.

Ta and a second suspect in the slaying, who is 17, were arrested last week in Boston while riding in the van used in the killing, police said.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Vickie Hix, a member of the district attorney’s anti-gang unit, said it is as yet uncertain if the death penalty will be sought.

Hix said the charges filed Wednesday in Municipal Court in Westminster allege that any prison sentence should be extended because someone involved in the slaying was carrying a gun and the crime was committed in connection with a street gang.

“We are not saying that the defendant was the one who had the gun,” said Douglas Woodsmall, supervising attorney for the gang unit.

A spokesman for the Garden Grove Police Department has said that police believe others were in the van at the time of the shooting, but are unsure how many. The spokesman said officers had names of other suspects thought to be members of a “loose,” locally based gang.

An arraignment at which Ta will enter his plea to the charges was scheduled for Wednesday. But at the hearing, Municipal Judge Robert H. Gallivan appointed a public defender to represent Ta and then agreed to postpone the arraignment until Sept. 16, apparently to give the lawyer time to study the case.

Gallivan also ordered Ta to be held in Orange County Jail without bail, Hix said.

Woodsmall said the second suspect arrested in the slaying, who is 17, is scheduled to appear today in Juvenile Court to enter his plea to a homicide charge. At that time, he said, the judge will schedule another hearing to consider the district attorney’s request that the youth be tried as an adult.