Gangster’s Death Penalty Is a First: Victims Were Rivals

The death penalty given to a Westminster gang member for a spree of violence over a yearlong period marks the first time in Orange County that a gang member has been sentenced to death for killing rival members.

Orange County Superior Court Judge Francisco P. Briseno on Thursday sentenced Lam Nguyen, 28, to be executed for killing two gang members in separate shootings in 1995. The victims were Sang Nguyen and Tuan Pham of Garden Grove.

Lam Nguyen also was convicted of shooting three other gang members in separate incidents in 1994 and 1995. Two of the victims were left paralyzed by the attacks.

The Orange County district attorney’s office prosecutes 10 to 15 gang-related murder cases each year, and the stiffest sentence meted out until now has been life in prison without parole.

Nguyen’s is the first case in which prosecutors sought the death penalty, based on the degree of violence involved.

Nguyen’s defense attorney, Gregory Parkin, had tried to save his client’s life by telling jurors about the defendant’s troubled childhood, with time spent in refugee camps in Thailand and Indonesia before his immigration to the United States.