Judge Told to Resentence Man Without Immigrant Comments

A federal judge who justified a maximum sentence in a bank fraud case by noting that the defendant was a naturalized U.S. citizen was ordered to reconsider the sentence Wednesday by a federal appeals court in San Francisco.

Both the prosecutor and the defense lawyer had recommended probation for Tuan Anh Giang, who pleaded guilty last year to a $70,000 credit card fraud and cooperated in an investigation of a company accused of promoting fraudulent schemes among Vietnamese immigrants in Orange County.

But U.S. District Judge William Keller of Los Angeles sentenced Giang to six months in jail, the maximum allowed by law, and said Giang was lucky it wasn’t longer.

“If he wasn’t naturalized, he’s going back to Vietnam” under deportation, Keller said, according to a transcript of the hearing last January. “You don’t come over here and commit crimes like that, when . . . this country extends its hand to you in the form of citizenship and you turn on the country like that.”

In a 3-0 ruling, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals told Keller to resentence Giang without regard to his status. The court said it presumed that Keller wasn’t biased against Giang, but “even the appearance that the sentence reflects a defendant’s race or nationality requires a remand for resentencing.”

“There is a sufficient risk that a reasonable observer, hearing or reading the quoted remarks, might infer that Giang’s ethnicity and naturalized status played a role in determining his sentence.”

Defense lawyer David Wiechert said Giang was one of a number of debt-ridden immigrants approached by a company offering help. The company suggested amassing the maximum debt on every credit card before declaring bankruptcy, and took half the amount borrowed, Wiechert said.