Target of Protests in Little Saigon to Be Sentenced

The shopkeeper whose display of Communist symbols sparked weeks of protests earlier this year in Little Saigon has dropped efforts to defend himself against charges of video piracy and will go before a judge today for sentencing.

Truong Van Tran plans to offer no defense in an abbreviated trial before Orange County Superior Court Judge Corey Cramin on a felony charge of illegally copying thousands of videotapes at his store in a Bolsa Avenue mini-mall, according to his attorney.

Tran was absent from a hearing on his case Monday. But his lawyer, Ron Talmo of Santa Ana, agreed to waive Tran’s right to a jury trial and accept the prosecution’s case.

“The criminal case has been hanging over his head,” Talmo said. “With [this case] over, he’ll be able to move ahead with his life.”

Tran faces a maximum of five years in prison for the crime but is likely to receive a lighter sentence, deputy district attorney Dan Wagner said. In the last three years, about two dozen people have been convicted on video piracy charges in Orange County, with sentences ranging from 90 days to one year in jail, he said.

Tran, 37, sparked a two-month protest in mid-January in Westminster’s Vietnamese community when he posted a picture of Communist leader Ho Chi Minh and a flag of the current Vietnamese government in his video shop.

His action ignited passionate protest from thousands of Vietnamese emigres in the community who considered the Communist symbols offensive. Many are exiles and former political prisoners who fled the Communist regime after the war.

Tran defended his display, saying that he simply wanted to prompt dialogue within a community that has never accepted dissent on the issue of normalizing relations with Vietnam.

The ordeal took a bizarre turn when Westminster officers entered his video store to investigate an apparent burglary. As protesters continued to chant outside, officers discovered more than 100 video cassette recorders wired together in an elaborate counterfeiting operation in the back of Tran’s Hi Tek video store.

In addition, they confiscated 147 VCRs and more than 17,000 counterfeit videos--mainly Asian soap operas--from his business.

Since his arrest March 16, Tran has stayed out of the public eye as the political movement born out of the protests has continued. Demonstrators continue to picket, for example, outside the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana.