2 Asian Boyz Gang Members Get Life Without Parole

Two Asian Boyz gang members were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole Wednesday, two months after a jury could not agree on whether they should be executed.

Superior Court Judge Darlene Schempp sentenced Sothi Mehn, 24, and Bunthoeun Roeung, 22, to three consecutive life terms. Mehn was also given 122 years in prison and Roeung was given 90 years. A jury convicted seven members of the gang in April for their roles in a 1995 crime rampage that left six people dead, including the fatal shooting of 27-year-old Jon Gregory during a home invasion robbery.

Gregory’s widow and mother read statements in court Wednesday.

“While you sit in jail . . . my husband and kid’s father lies in a coffin,” Gregory’s widow, Jennifer, told the defendants. “The only way his family gets to visit him is by sitting by his grave. Tell me how fair that is?”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Laura Baird called the prosecution a success because the state will “take seven violent gang members off the street and keep them in prison for the rest of their lives.”

David Evangalista, 24; Kimorn Nuth, 21; and Ky Tony Ngo, 23, have already been sentenced to life in prison.

The remaining co-defendants--Roatha Buth, 26, and Son Bui, 22--are to be sentenced early next week.

The four-month trial was marked by the murder in San Jose of father of the key witness--a shooting that police maintain was carried out in retaliation for the son’s testimony.