Suspect in fatal jewelry heist jailed

Friday, May 9, 2003 | 10 a.m.

A California man charged in connection with a 1999 robbery of a Las Vegas jewelry store that ended with the slaying of a security guard has been jailed pending trial.

Vu Nguyen is alleged to have been one of two men who took $1.72 million in watches from Chong Hing Jewelers at the Chinatown Plaza on Sept. 16, 1999.

Nguyen is charged with conspiracy, interference with commerce by violence, use of a firearm during a crime of violence resulting in death and aiding and abetting. He was ordered detained Thursday by U.S. Magistrate Judge Lawrence Leavitt, and is tentatively scheduled to go to trial in July.

The robbery resulted in the death of Kenneth Bailey, a 37-year-old security guard from Henderson who was shot and killed with a semiautomatic assault weapon when two masked men stormed the store.

Another California man, Anh The Duong, is also facing charges in the robbery and is alleged to be the leader of a gang that committed a series of jewelry store heists through March 2001. Duong has already been convicted and sentenced to death in a quadruple homicide case in California.