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Thread: Anh The Duong - California

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    Anh The Duong - California


    Anh The Duong


    Summary of Offense:

    Josefino Cambosa, 54, an Atlas Security & Patrol guard from San Jose, was shot and killed about 3 p.m. March 13, 2001, as he emerged from a backroom of the Jade Galore Jewelry Co. store where he worked. Anh The Duong, 30, who is accused in seven other slayings and 15 other armed robberies, pulled the trigger while accompanied by Soewin Chan and Philip Garza, both of whom also had guns.

    Chan and Duong had cased the jewelry store eight days before the robbery and slaying at the Cupertino Village shopping center on North Wolfe Road, the indictment says. The three men escaped with $532,650 in watches but were later identified and arrested, including Duong, who was taken into custody four months later as he played basketball at an Orange County gym. Duong was sentenced to death on March 7, 2003 for killing four people at a birthday party at a nightclub in El Monte (Los Angeles County) in May 1999. Duong allegedly oversaw a ring of robbers that took cash, jewelry and computer parts across the state and in Las Vegas.

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    First federal death penalty trial in San Jose gets under way

    The first federal death penalty trial in Silicon Valley history has quietly begun to unfold in a San Jose courtroom.

    Since early last week, potential jurors have filed each day into U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel's downtown court, where for the next six months 35-year-old Anh The Duong will face a sweeping racketeering indictment accusing him of leading a violent gang that carried out murders and robberies across California and Nevada during the 1990s.

    The trial marks just the second time in the past 50 years that a defendant has faced the death penalty in a Bay Area federal court trial, the other ending last summer in a life-in-prison verdict for a Western Addition gang leader who stood trial in San Francisco. It also represents one of about a dozen examples around the country of the Obama administration's willingness to press for capital punishment in certain cases.

    Federal death penalty cases are rare across the nation, as the vast majority of prosecutions for heinous crimes such as murder take place in state courts. Just a few dozen inmates are on federal death row, compared with about 700 in California alone. But federal prosecutors do use the powers of certain federal laws against gang leaders, drug kingpins and others, notably the racketeering charge used against Duong, to fold a host of crimes into one trial, avoiding separate state prosecutions in one effort to seek a death sentence.

    Duong's case, which includes allegations of murder in San Jose and Fremont, is particularly unique because he's already on California's death row. A Southern California jury recommended a death sentence for Duong in 2003 for murdering four people in an El Monte pool hall in 1999.

    Nevertheless, current Attorney General Eric Holder and Justice Department officials decided to seek a federal death sentence for Duong in the San Jose racketeering case. San Francisco U.S. Attorney Joseph Russoniello, whose office is prosecuting the charges, declined to comment on the decision.

    Slow pace

    But given the slow pace of California's death penalty appeals process, experts say they are not surprised that federal prosecutors would seek the death penalty in a case that includes links to eight murders and a long string of armed robberies. Federal death row cases move through the appeals process much swifter.

    "The real question is why use federal resources to go after a guy already on the state's death row," said Rory Little, a University of Hastings law professor who served on former Attorney General Janet Reno's death penalty review committee. "But it seems to me it's not outside the ballpark. There doesn't seem to be an obvious flaw to be argued in this case."

    David Andersen, Duong's defense lawyer, declined to comment. But in court papers, he has argued against allowing prosecutors to seek a death sentence, in large part because their case "hinges on the testimony of unreliable and largely uncorroborated informant/accomplice testimony."

    Court papers also suggest that Duong may mount a mental illness defense in the case, which Andersen declined to discuss. In 2001, while awaiting trial on the state murder charges, Duong attempted suicide, slashing his wrists with a makeshift knife, and was placed in a medically induced coma before recovering in a Southern California hospital.

    Meanwhile, in a 112-page brief filed earlier this month, federal prosecutors outlined the evidence they say backs up their 29-count racketeering indictment against Duong, described as the "leader of this criminal organization."

    The indictment includes mention of eight murders, including the 1997 slaying of 66-year-old Chau Quach, allegedly gunned down by Duong during the robbery of a San Jose grocery store. The racketeering charges also include the 1998 shooting of Hai Pin Tsai during a botched robbery of Wintec Industries, a Fremont computer parts maker.

    Milpitas heist

    In all, the indictment charges Duong with orchestrating nearly a dozen armed robberies, including a $2 million heist of a Milpitas jewelry store, the robbery of a Hayward sports card shop and a Las Vegas robbery that resulted in another killing.

    In court papers, federal prosecutors have asked Fogel to keep Duong in leg shackles during the trial, warning that his history of violence, particularly against potential witnesses, "has created a potentially dangerous situation for the prosecution team, the jurors and everyone else in the courtroom."

    Jury selection is expected to take another few weeks, with the trial moving into the evidence stage sometime in mid-to-late March.

    http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_14493043?source=rss

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    San Jose: Federal death penalty trial nearing a close

    After three months and more than 100 witnesses, the first federal death penalty trial in Silicon Valley history is nearing a conclusion.

    In closing arguments Tuesday, federal prosecutors made their case for reputed gang leader Anh The Duong to be convicted of sweeping racketeering charges that would make him eligible for a death sentence. The guilt phase of the case is expected to conclude Wednesday with Duong's lawyers wrapping up their defense arguments, and the jury would then consider dozens of allegations that he committed murders and robberies as the "linchpin" of a violent criminal organization.

    If convicted of the racketeering charges, which link Duong to murders in San Jose and Fremont as well as the murders of four people in an El Monte pool hall in 1999, the trial would proceed to a penalty phase. Duong's trial marks just the second time in the past 50 years that a defendant has faced the death penalty in a Bay Area federal courtroom, the other ending last summer in a life-in-prison verdict for a San Francisco gang leader.

    "You have overwhelming evidence in this case," Assistant U.S. Attorney James Chou told the San Jose jury. Referring to one of eight murders linked to Duong, he added at one point: "Duong killed because he wanted these robberies to succeed."

    Defense lawyers began their effort to chip away at the government's evidence late Tuesday, picking up on their trial theme that Duong did not lead a racketeering enterprise, but instead a loose-knit gang of associates from Vietnamese refugee families. They also are expected to attack the credibility of the government's chief witnesses, former gang members who agreed to cooperate against Duong. Duong's ex-girlfriend also testified against him.

    Richard Zimmer, one of Duong's lawyers, told jurors it was important to consider whether Duong and his cohorts from the Vietnamese community joining together for cultural reasons, not to establish a criminal organization. The 35-year-old Duong sat at the defense table, dressed in casual clothes with laptops opened to the government's charts and exhibits on the table in front of him.

    "You have to be willing look at this evidence through that (cultural) lens," Zimmer said.

    The jury does not know that Duong is already on California's death row for gunning down four people in the El Monte pool hall in a showdown with rival gang members, crimes that are folded into the federal racketeering charges.

    The Justice Department is seeking its own death sentence for Duong, who would likely face a much swifter path to execution in the federal system than in California, where more than 700 inmates are now on the state's death row and executions are on hold as a result of legal challenges to lethal injection.

    In all, the racketeering indictment charges Duong with orchestrating nearly a dozen armed robberies, including a $2 million heist of a Milpitas jewelry store, the robbery of a Hayward sports card shop, a botched computer chip holdup in Fremont and a robbery in Las Vegas that resulted in a murder.

    The charges include the 1997 slaying of 66-year-old Chau Quach during the robbery of a San Jose grocery store, the fatal shooting of 54-year-old Josephino Cambosa during a 2001 Cupertino jewelry store robbery and the fatal 1998 shooting of Hai Pin Tsai during the Fremont high-tech robbery.

    http://www.contracostatimes.com/rss/ci_16015182?source=rss

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    Federal jury finds gang leader guilty in racketeering trial

    A federal jury in San Jose Wednesday found a reputed gang leader guilty of racketeering for orchestrating a string of violent robberies and murders more than a decade ago, setting up a penalty phase in his trial to determine if he should receive a death sentence.

    After several days of deliberations in a trial that began in June, the jury returned a guilty verdict on 29 racketeering charges against 35-year-old Anh The Duong, who was implicated in eight murders across California and Nevada. The jury will return Oct. 4 to consider evidence on whether Duong's crimes warrant a federal death sentence.

    Duong is already on California's death row for the 1999 murders of four people in an El Monte pool hall, but the U.S. Justice Department decided to seek a death sentence in the racketeering case as well. Duong would likely face a much swifter path to execution if he receives the death penalty in the federal system than in California, where death row inmates typically spend two decades or more in San Quentin before they face an execution date.

    Duong's trial marks just the second time in at least the past 50 years that a defendant has faced the death penalty in a Bay Area federal courtroom, the other ending last summer in a life-in-prison verdict for a Western Addition gang leader who stood trial in San Francisco.

    David Anderson, Duong's defense lawyer, declined comment outside court. During the trial, defense lawyers depicted Duong as part of a group of misguided youth from Vietnamese refugee families, an argument aimed at trying to show he was not the leader of an organized criminal enterprise.

    But more than 100 witnesses testified during the trial, including many of Duong's former cohorts who pleaded guilty to federal charges in exchange for cooperating in the government's case, as well as his former girlfriend who testified that Duong confided his role in various crimes alleged in the racketeering indictment.

    Federal prosecutors alleged that Duong orchestrated nearly a dozen armed robberies, including a $2 million heist of a Milpitas jewelry store, the robbery of a Hayward card shop, a botched computer chip holdup in Fremont and a robbery in Las Vegas that resulted in one murder.

    The jury's racketeering verdict found Duong guilty of a 1997 slaying of 66-year-old Chau Quach during the robbery of a San Jose grocery store, the fatal shooting of 54-year-old Josephino Cambosa during a 2001 Cupertino jewelry store robbery and the fatal 1998 shooting of Hai Pin Tsai during the Fremont high-tech robbery.

    The only slim victory for Duong in the verdict was the finding that the 1999 El Monte murders were not committed in connection with the racketeering enterprise. Testimony at trial indicated Duong opened fire on the victims as a feud with rival gang members escalated during a party at the pool hall.

    Nevertheless, prosecutors can use the murders to argue for the death penalty during the trial's next phase.

    http://www.mercurynews.com/bay-area-news/ci_16144417?source=rss&nclick_check=1

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    San Jose: Gang leader's trial moves to penalty phase

    Federal prosecutors Tuesday began their bid to persuade a jury in San Jose to recommend a death sentence for a gang leader who has been convicted of orchestrating a string of robberies and murders more than a decade ago.

    Opening the penalty phase of a trial that began in June, prosecution witnesses, many of them family members of victims, gave their accounts of Anh The Duong's wave of violence and how it has affected their lives. A jury last month convicted the 35-year-old Duong of 29 racketeering charges, making him eligible for the death penalty.

    Duong's trial marks just the second time in at least 50 years that a defendant has faced the death penalty in a Bay Area federal courtroom, and the first such trial in Silicon Valley history. Duong is already on California's death row for the 1999 murders of four people in an El Monte pool hall, but the U.S. Justice Department decided to push for a death sentence for his federal crimes, which include murders during robberies in San Jose, Cupertino and Fremont.

    One of those victims was 66-year-old Chau Quach, fatally shot during a 1997 robbery of a San Jose grocery store. Triem Chiem, Quach's son-in-law, told the jury that the murder devastated Quach's widow, daughter and the rest of his family.

    "Everybody was very sad in the family," Chiem said through a Vietnamese interpreter. "At that time, I was out of my mind, crazy."

    Duong would likely face a much swifter path to execution if he receives the death penalty in the federal system. In California, death row inmates typically spend two decades or more in San Quentin before they face an execution date. Prosecutors have listed more than 20 witnesses they plan to call during the penalty phase.

    Duong's lawyers have not yet disclosed their witness list, or their approach to arguing that Duong should be spared from joining the 60 other inmates now on the country's federal death row.

    http://www.contracostatimes.com/rss/...877?source=rss

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    Give robbers' ringleader death, prosecutors say

    Man who led Fashion Island hold up and others statewide had a policy with his crew: Shoot first, shoot to kill.

    Federal prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for Anh The Duong, who led armed robberies throughout the state, including two in Costa Mesa and Newport Beach.

    Duong's crew, a band of jewelry thieves, had been operating since 1993, when they held up a NGY Jewelers in Santa Ana at gunpoint and made off with $500,000 worth of loose diamonds. Under his direction, the group traveled up and down California robbing banks, and jewelry and electronics stores.

    Police said Duong and his men operated on a shoot-first basis. When they encountered resistance from anyone, be it a guard or bystander, they would shoot to kill. On top of their 16 armed robbery and racketeering convictions last month, the federal jury found Duong and his crew guilty of eight murders.
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    Only when they could disarm the guard first, like they did at Tourneau jewelry store at South Coast Plaza in September 2000, did they not shoot, police said.

    In that robbery, the men took over the store and made off with 50 watches worth $592,115.

    Four months later, Duong and his crew hit Traditional Jewelers at Fashion Island. Donning jackets and masks, Duong and two others took over the store, unaware that a pair of security guards in the mall had spotted them going in.

    Twenty to 30 shots were exchanged between the guards and robbers. Duong's crew saw the security guards and starting shooting, with the guards returning fire through the pane-glass front. One of the guards was shot in the chest and lived. Duong's men escaped, but without any jewelry.

    Costa Mesa police arrested Duong in July 2001 at a local gym. Duong is in the penalty phase of his trial, where U.S. attorneys are seeking the death penalty. He's due back in court Nov. 3.

    http://articles.dailypilot.com/2010-...lty-ringleader

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    San Jose federal jury declines to recommend death penalty in gang leader's trial

    After nine years of legal sparring and a trial that spanned most of this year, the U.S. Justice Department has failed in its long and costly bid to get a rare federal death sentence against a reputed gang leader whose violence stretched across the Bay Area, California and Nevada.

    In a verdict reached last week, a federal jury in San Jose refused to recommend the death penalty for 35-year-old Anh The Duong, who was implicated in eight murders and found guilty in September of 29 racketeering charges related to a crime spree that unfolded more than a decade ago. The verdict ensures that Duong will receive life in prison without the possibility of parole when he is sentenced in February by U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel.

    Duong, however, is already on California's death row for the 1999 murders of four people in an El Monte pool hall, crimes that were part of the federal racketeering case. Despite the state death sentence, federal prosecutors decided to push for the death penalty in the federal system, where Duong would most likely face a much swifter path to execution. But the jury, which was selected earlier this year and began hearing evidence in June, declined to impose the ultimate punishment.

    The trial marked just the second time in the past 50 years that a defendant has faced the death penalty in a Bay Area federal court trial, the other was last year in San Francisco. Both ended in a verdict for a life sentence.

    The U.S. Attorney's office declined comment, other than to say prosecutors "respect the jury's decision."

    David Andersen, Duong's attorney, was also limited in commenting on the outcome. "I just want to thank the jury for recognizing the value of a human being and allowing him to live," he said.

    In the penalty phase of the trial, Duong's lawyers depicted Duong as a product of a violent, unstable environment in a Southern California Vietnamese refugee community. Jurors found dozens of specific factors that could weigh against imposing a death sentence, including the displacement of his family from Vietnam and violence in his home, where he was called "son of a dog" and "worthless" by his father and other relatives, according to the verdict form.

    In listing other reasons for not imposing the death penalty, eight jurors also found that "early intervention by law enforcement" could have prevented some of Duong's crimes, according to notes on the verdict form. And five jurors wrote that "future generations of the defendant's family will be negatively affected by the death of Anh. They might see the government as the cause of that death."

    More than 100 witnesses testified during the trial, including many of Duong's former cohorts, as well as a former girlfriend who testified that he confided his role in various violent crimes. Federal prosecutors alleged that Duong orchestrated nearly a dozen armed robberies, but the death penalty hinged on three holdups that resulted in murders.

    The jury found Duong guilty of a 1997 slaying of 66-year-old Chau Quach during the robbery of a San Jose grocery store, the fatal shooting of 54-year-old Josephino Cambosa during a 2001 Cupertino jewelry store robbery and the fatal 1998 shooting of Hai Pin Tsai during a Fremont computer chip robbery.

    http://www.mercurynews.com/crime-cou...nclick_check=1

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    San Jose: Gang leader sentenced to life in prison for murders, racketeering

    Gang leader and convicted killer Anh The Duong will either spend the rest of his life in federal prison or be executed on California's death row. But on Thursday, his punishment was to sit shackled in a courtroom, a few feet from the tearful, emotional members of his many victims' families who stood within his gaze and recounted their anguish.

    In a sentencing hearing in a federal court in San Jose, Karen Celkos, holding a portrait of her slain boyfriend Minh Dieu Tram, asked Duong: "Do you remember him?" Then she offered her forgiveness, her 13-year-old son nearby, saying to a sobbing Duong, "While you sit in prison ... until your last dying days, you need to find peace within yourself."

    Duong whispered, "I'm sorry."

    After more than an hour of similar victim testimony, U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel sentenced Duong, 35, to life in prison without the possibility of parole for his conviction on federal racketeering charges that included eight murders in a crime spree that stretched across the Bay Area, Southern California and Nevada more than a decade ago.

    After a six-month trial, a federal jury in December declined the U.S. Justice Department's bid to secure a death sentence for the charges, leaving Fogel without much leeway in determining Duong's sentence.

    However, Duong will now be sent to California's death row, where he already is serving a state death sentence for the 1999 murders of four people in an El Monte pool hall.

    Tram, shot five times, was one of the victims of that rampage.

    Fogel, before handing down the sentence, said the testimony of the victims' families shows "just how deep and how broad the suffering in this case has been."

    "In 30 years as a judge," Fogel told the packed courtroom, "I've never been through a more emotionally wrenching experience."

    Duong apologized to his victims.

    "I'll live with the consequences of my actions the rest of my life," he said in a statement to the judge.

    During the trial, Duong was depicted by dozens of witnesses as the ruthless leader of a Vietnamese gang that carried out armed robberies from Silicon Valley to Las Vegas. He was found guilty of a 1997 slaying of 66-year-old Chau Quach during the robbery of a San Jose grocery store, the fatal shooting of 54-year-old Josephino Cambosa during a 2001 Cupertino jewelry store robbery and the fatal 1998 shooting of Hai Pin Tsai during a Fremont computer chip robbery.

    While Celkos was forgiving, handing a copy of a book called "A Purpose Driven Life" to Duong when she finished her remarks, others had harsh words and appeared disappointed the jury did not hand down a death sentence. Some could not cope with coming to court, so their letters were read in open court, including one from Cambosa's daughter, Cynthia Elkins. Cambosa's widow sat in the courtroom, weeping.

    "You aren't a man, you are a coldblooded killer," Elkins wrote. "There may be others who've forgiven you for your acts. But I cannot."

    Christopher White also testified. Duong killed White's best friend, security guard Kenneth Bailey, during a Las Vegas robbery in 1999. Outside court, White called Duong a "coward," but declined to second-guess the jury's decision not to impose the death penalty.

    "He's not getting out, and that's probably the most important part," he said.

    Blake Wirth, the FBI agent who helped capture the elusive gang leader, said outside court that keeping Duong behind bars was a key reason for bringing a federal racketeering case against his organization.

    "The most important part of this case," Wirth said, "was to take him off the street."

    http://www.mercurynews.com/crime-cou...ce=most_viewed

  9. #9
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    Duong's opening brief on direct appeal was filed on February 24, 2014.

    http://appellatecases.courtinfo.ca.g...doc_no=S114228

  10. #10
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    Duong's direct appeal has been fully briefed before the California Supreme Court since April 21, 2015.

    http://appellatecases.courtinfo.ca.g...doc_no=S114228

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