Man gets 30 years in jewelry store heist

Jeff Donaldson

Monday, May 9, 2005 | 9:06 a.m.

A California man was sentenced to 30 years in prison Friday for his part in a Las Vegas jewelry store robbery that included the killing of a security guard.

Vu Nguyen participated in the September 1999 robbery of Chong Hing Jewelers at Chinatown Plaza. His federal trial in February lasted more than three weeks, but it took a jury less than an hour to convict Nguyen.

While sentencing Nguyen, U.S. District Judge Kent Dawson said he believed there was sufficient evidence that Nguyen did not carry a weapon during the robbery and that Nguyen may not have known that the alleged mastermind of the robbery, Anh The Duong, was going to shoot the guard.

But Dawson sentenced Nguyen to five years for conspiracy, five years for interference with commerce by violence and 20 years for the use of a firearm in a violent crime.

Nguyen faced as much as life in prison. Dawson rejected prosecutors claims that Nguyen's case could have warranted the death penalty.

Prosecutors had argued that Nguyen was a member of a violent gang responsible for robberies and killings. Duong, the alleged leader of the gang, also was charged in the Las Vegas robbery and is jailed and is facing charges in Northern California.

According to the April 2003 indictment, Nguyen, 34, and Duong, 28, traveled from California to Nevada on Sept. 15, 1999. The next day, the two men went into the jewelry store on Spring Mountain Road and stole about $1.7 million in watches. Some of the watches ranged in prices from $1,500 to as much as $65,000 a piece.

Prosecutors said Nguyen and Duong robbed the store and Duong used an assault rifle to shoot Kenneth Bailey, a 37-year-old security guard, in the back as he washed the store windows.

The government relied on several members of Duong's gang who have pleaded guilty to crimes and are assisting in the prosecution of the two men. One of the witnesses was Bach Nguyen, no relation to Vu Nguyen, who testified that Nguyen had confessed that he had participated in the fatal robbery.