Slaying Suspect Returned : Phony ‘Official’ Tried Earlier for Release of Alleged Killer of Officer

Amid concerns of a rescue attempt or assassination attempt, the man accused of the roadside slaying of a rookie CHP officer was secretly flown Monday into John Wayne Airport, where he was greeted by a dozen Fullerton police officers toting automatic weapons.

Shackled and dour, Hung “Henry” Thanh Mai, 25, was ferried from Houston to California aboard a chartered jet. Mai is expected to appear in court today or Wednesday to face charges that he fatally shot CHP Officer Don Burt.

The high security and low profile of Mai’s extradition from a Texas jail was a nod to concerns that someone might try to free him or that “hateful phone calls” in recent days might signal an attempt on his life, according to Fullerton police Sgt. Dave Stanko.

Stanko revealed Monday that a caller posing as “a high-ranking official in the Fullerton police department” tried to have Mai freed from jail in Texas, where he was arrested Wednesday.

The caller succeeded Friday afternoon in persuading a Harris County sheriff’s deputy to send the still-cuffed inmate down to the jail area where prisoners are prepared for release, Stanko said.

A senior officer on duty, however, questioned the prisoner and quickly returned him to his cell, he said.

Stanko said he was unsure how a single phone call from an unknown person could bring a homicide suspect “so close” to release. “I don’t know anything about Houston’s operation,” he said.

Deputies on duty at the Harris County jail Monday night said they were unaware of the situation and not authorized to comment.

Mai, described by investigators as a suspected gang member, was arrested when a team of police officers and federal agents burst into an apartment complex in southwest Houston and found him sleeping on the couch, police said.

Stanko said investigators tracked Mai to Houston with “documentation” found in the BMW that was near Burt’s body and was believed to have been driven by the 25-year-old officer’s killer. Phony traveler’s checks were discovered in the BMW’s trunk.

Burt was shot seven times when a routine traffic stop July 13 exploded into violence shortly after the driver gave Burt a phony name, according to CHP officials. The gunman fled the scene in Burt’s police car and ditched it nearby. Neither the murder weapon nor Burt’s handgun has been recovered, Stanko said Monday.

Meanwhile, some federal lawmakers criticized the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service for failing to deport Mai when he was imprisoned in California on an illegal weapons conviction in 1993. Mai is a native of Vietnam and a legal resident of the U.S.

‘He should have been deported,” Rep. Ed Royce (R-Fullerton) said Monday.

Federal immigration officials reacted angrily to such criticism. They said that at the time, federal law did not allow them to deport Mai to his homeland.

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Russ Bergeron, the senior press officer at INS in Washington, said the U.S. could not have deported Mai to Vietnam because the countries did not--and still do not--have a repatriation agreement.

In 1993, when Mai was in prison, the two countries did not have diplomatic relations.

Bergeron added that even if INS officials had sought to deport Mai, they could not have detained him. Mai’s crimes were not severe enough at the time to allow the INS to hold him pending deportation, Bergeron said.

He added his agency had ordered 500 Vietnamese immigrants deported in 1994, but none were returned to their country.

Bergeron said he was angered at recent criticism that the INS could have deported Mai in 1993 and hence prevented Burt’s death.

“Some people are taking the tragic death of an individual and turning it into a political issue based on false assumptions,” Bergeron said.

Federal law changed this year to allow the INS to detain any legal immigrant who has been convicted of a felony. Bergeron said the law was not in place in 1993.

Royce, however, said that INS should have at least tried to send Mai back to Vietnam even if there was no formal arrangement between nations.

“If you don’t try, then you don’t know,” Royce said.

Mai is the second suspect taken into custody in connection with Burt’s slaying.

Young Ho Choi, 32, of Buena Park, was arrested near the dead officer’s abandoned cruiser and jailed for a day before police cleared him of involvement.

After his release, Choi complained that he was treated roughly and denied access to a bathroom or an attorney while in custody.

Police Chief Patrick E. McKinley has apologized to Choi and promised an inquiry into the actions of his officers.

Even before Burt’s shooting, Mai had drawn the attention of law enforcement. He was wanted on assault charges, and Huntington Beach police have confirmed that he had been among the suspects in a large-scale investigation of a far-reaching fraud ring, a probe investigators said was discontinued in recent months due to budget cuts.

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Investigators have described Mai as “extremely dangerous,” a career criminal who has used automatic weapons, bulletproof vests and a long list of aliases. Those factors were another consideration in the high-security operation to return him to Orange County to face charges of shooting Burt, Stanko said.

Three Fullerton detectives and two U.S. marshals shepherded Mai--cuffed at the wrists and ankles--on the 3 1/2-hour flight aboard a 12-passenger jet.

Police also were concerned about several vitriolic calls about the suspect since the death of Burt, who left behind a young wife who is seven months pregnant.

On Monday, police photographers documented Mai’s arrival in Orange County and brief walk across the pavement to a waiting van. In the series of pictures, Mai, wearing a blue Polo shirt and jeans, was surrounded by police officers, several still wearing a strip of black tape across their badges, a silent memorial to Burt.

“This went off without a hitch,” Stanko said after Mai was booked into Orange County Jail.