Wednesday, April 1, 1998 | 9:58 a.m.
A three-judge panel has been assembled to decide if a former MGM Grand hotel-casino restaurant worker should get the death sentence for the slaying of a UNLV coed.
District Judge Jeff Sobel will be joined on the panel deciding the fate of Vinh Sinh Truong by Reno District Judge Jan Berry and Fallon District Judge David Huff. No date has been set for the penalty hearing.
The three-judge panel is necessary because Truong pleaded guilty without a plea bargain to all charges in what appears to be a calculated gamble to escape the death penalty.
Normally, juries decide both guilt and penalties in murder cases but there is no jury in Truong's case so the job falls to the judges.
Such panels almost always hand down death sentences but Sobel has long voiced his personal opposition to the death penalty.
The gamble for Truong is that Sobel and the others will overlook the brutal nature of the slaying and the defendant's history of crime to give him a life prison term with or without the possibility of parole.
All three judges must agree for a defendant to be given the death sentence.
The stabbing death of 20-year-old Lisa Sadie occurred while Truong was stealing $25,000 from the Studio Cafe where he had worked on the graveyard shift until his termination for tardiness.
Sadie, who worked there as head cashier to put herself through film studies classes at UNLV, was stabbed to death after a blow to her head with a ketchup bottle failed to stop her screaming, Truong has admitted to Metro Police.
When he pleaded guilty, Truong explained that he stole the $25,000 in October 1996 to repay loan sharks that were circling.
When Truong was arrested in blood-stained clothes a short time after the incident as he was leaving the Palace Station hotel-casino, $2,000 of the stolen funds already were gone.
Deputy District Attorney David Schwartz said that Truong was videotaped by surveillance cameras leaving the resort's Studio Cafe and was recognized by hotel employees who had worked with him.
Schwartz said Truong was familiar with the location of the money and knew when the safe would be full.
Along with pleading guilty to first-degree murder, Truong also pleaded guilty to burglary and robbery.
He already was on parole for counterfeiting and had a past felony conviction for embezzlement, Schwartz said.
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