Killer Stuns Court With Statement

In a chilling courtroom scene that only underscored the violence of the crime itself, a convicted cop killer Wednesday turned around in the defendant’s chair and delivered a defiant message to his victim’s family:

“I’d do it again,” Hung Thanh Mai said, his eyes coldly focused on the parents of slain California Highway Patrol Officer Don J. Burt.

Burt, 25, was killed four years ago during a routine traffic stop in Fullerton. According to authorities, Mai shot Burt seven times, the final bullet being delivered nearly point-blank to the officer’s head as he lay writhing on the ground.

“He leaned over, held his weapon less than a foot from Officer Burt’s head and executed him,” said Assistant Dist. Atty. Mike Jacobs during his opening statement before an Orange County jury that is considering whether Mai, 29, should get the death penalty for Burt’s murder.

Mai was convicted in July without a trial as part of a deal with federal prosecutors, who had charged him with weapons dealing and plotting the death of one of the witnesses in the murder case.

Mai, who arranged those crimes while in Orange County Jail awaiting trial, pleaded guilty to the federal charges and is serving a 30-year sentence. Federal prosecutors agreed to be lenient toward Mai’s girlfriend, who was also involved in the murder-for-hire plot, in exchange for Mai’s guilty pleas.

On Wednesday, a visibly agitated Mai entered the Santa Ana courtroom wearing an orange jumpsuit and shackled at the waist. He briefly exchanged words with his attorney, George Peters, and demanded that Peters address the court.

“I need to say something,” Mai said loudly. “Mr. Peters, would you please speak up for me.”

Peters later declined to comment on his client’s behavior. He also did not deliver an opening statement.

Superior Court Judge Richard L. Weatherspoon admonished Mai not to disrupt the proceedings and to speak in a whisper if he needed to address his attorneys.

Mai, however, continued to mumble, and from time to time turned toward Burt’s parents and widow, seated just feet away from him.

As Jacobs described the July 13, 1996, traffic stop that turned deadly for Burt, a rookie barely a year out of the academy, Mai turned around and smirked at the victim’s parents.

Don Burt Sr. stared blankly at his son’s killer as his wife, Jeannie, wept quietly. Burt’s widow, Kristin, who was seven months pregnant when her husband was killed, sat motionless a row behind.

“Smile,” Mai told the family at one point.

Finally a bailiff placed a hand on Mai’s shoulder, and he remained quiet for the rest of the proceedings.

Burt’s family members, some of whom are expected to testify, declined to comment. But Carol Waxman, a former county grief counselor who has accompanied the Burts from the beginning of their ordeal, expressed astonishment.

“Can you believe that? I have never seen anything like that before,” she said. “There is no human being behind those eyes.”

According to authorities, Mai killed Burt in cold blood in a Fullerton parking lot after the officer pulled over Mai’s white BMW on the Orange Freeway. Mai produced a suspended driver’s license under someone else’s name. As Burt waited for a tow truck to impound the car, he began searching the trunk and allegedly found some forged traveler’s checks.

According to witnesses, as Burt approached the driver’s door, Mai burst out of the BMW and fired a pistol several times.

“There was a flurry of shots,” Benjamin Baldauf, who was using a pay phone nearby, testified Wednesday. “There was a couple of seconds and then a single shot.”

Officials never recovered the 9-millimeter semiautomatic weapon Mai used or Burt’s service weapon, which authorities said Mai took from the scene. The killer fled in Burt’s patrol car, its lights still whirling, but abandoned the vehicle seven miles away in Anaheim.

On Wednesday, Jacobs played a tape of Burt’s last contact with the CHP’s dispatch office. After he learned that the driver’s license had been suspended, he asked for a tow truck.

“ ‘Ten-four’ [a police code for acknowledging a radio transmission]. That was the last thing he said to me,” said dispatcher Paul Wilcox.

Burt Sr. and his wife broke down as they heard their son’s last words on the scratchy tape recordings.

Anaheim police arrested a man shortly after the shooting, but he was released. Authorities then began a nationwide manhunt for Mai, who had left his wallet containing his real driver’s license under the seat of the BMW. He was arrested in Houston four days later on a tip from a friend and associate of his.

Jacobs said Wednesday that bloodstains found on Mai’s shoes in Houston matched Burt’s DNA.

While in jail, Mai, who allegedly operated an extensive forgery and fraud ring, arranged for the murder of the friend who had turned him over, authorities said. He also ran an arms smuggling ring using the jail’s cell phones and his contacts on the outside.

Mai’s accomplices in the murder conspiracy and arms deal, including his girlfriend and a private investigator on his defense team, were convicted of the federal charges.

Wednesday’s proceedings began under tight security. Jurors and spectators were required to go through two sets of metal detectors before entering the courtroom on the ninth floor of the courthouse in Santa Ana.

Mai, officials said, has violated jail rules several times and has attempted to communicate with other prisoners at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles, where he is being held.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Marc Greenberg, who prosecuted Mai on the federal charges, was dismayed when told of Mai’s courtroom behavior.

“He is one of the most high-security prisoners in the U.S. at this point,” he said. “As you can see, for a good reason.”