Gunman Draws 4 Life Terms in Mall Attack : Violence: After an emotional appeal from the girl he seriously wounded, 19-year-old defendant is sentenced to at least 64 years.

In an effort to deter gang violence, a Superior Court judge Friday sentenced a 19-year-old Santa Ana man to four consecutive life terms for shooting into a crowd and seriously wounding a 13-year-old girl at the Westminster Mall last summer.

Under the maximum allowable sentencing imposed by Judge Luis A. Cardenas, Phong Thanh Dang will not be eligible for parole for at least 64 years. Prosecutors noted that the sentence was one of the harshest ever imposed in Orange County in a gang-related, nonfatal shooting.

A jury found the former La Quinta High school student guilty in August of four counts of attempted murder, street terrorism and committing a crime as part of gang involvement.

“If you think, Mr. Dang, that I am making an example of you, the answer is yes I am,” Cardenas said Friday as Dang listened impassively. “I hope you tell your buddies in jail what the consequences for this type of nonsense are.”

The judge’s sentence requires Dang to serve an additional eight-year term before his life sentences begin, because he used a handgun and caused great bodily injury in the crime.

“It’s this type of conduct that brings a community to the edge of anarchy,” Cardenas added.

According to prosecutors, Dang fired at least four shots into a crowd of shoppers at the Westminster Mall on July 8, 1993, after receiving a “hard look” from another group of young people. During the shooting, a 13-year-old girl was struck in the back, while another bullet passed through the pant leg of a 15-year-old girl, prosecutors said.

The girl wounded in the shooting urged the judge Friday to impose the harshest sentence possible on Dang.

“I wish he would go in for as long as possible for what he did to me,” said Phuong Nguyen, now 14, who battled tears as she read from a brief statement.

The girl, who has recovered physically from her wound, testified the shooting has left her with emotional scars: she has trouble eating and sleeping and is afraid to go to crowded places.

“Everywhere I go people know me as the girl who got shot in the mall,” she said. “Sometimes I wished I would have died at the mall. I have nightmares about the shooting.”

The girl and her family declined to comment on the judge’s action.

“It was entirely appropriate. He was a murderer waiting for a victim,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. David R. LaBahn. “People have a right to be free and safe.”

During the hearing, defense attorney Thomas Avdeef asked the judge to order another trial for his client. Avdeef argued Dang should be judged on a far less serious charge, assault with a deadly weapon, since intent to kill was never proved.

Cardenas rejected the motion.

Avdeef was unavailable for further comment Friday.