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A man convicted in the kidnapping of two young children from their Burnaby home during a home-invasion-style robbery has been sentenced to 11 years in prison.
In December last year, Hieu Thanh Nguyen, whose sentence was reduced to six years and six months due to credit for pre-trial custody, was found to be the "organizing force" behind the abduction of eight-year-old Diamond Nguyen and her seven-year-old brother, Viet Nguyen, in May 2006. Neither child is related to Nguyen.
B.C. Supreme Court Justice Austin Cullen found that while Nguyen wasn't present during the abduction, he knew the victims' father, was in contact with the kidnappers and directed their activities.
The two Nguyen children, Diamond, 8 (left), and Viet, 7, were kidnapped in May 2006.
Global BC
While the kidnapping was not premeditated, the home invasion that preceded the abduction was planned and done at the direction of Nguyen, said the judge in his reasons for judgment. Cullen also cited the vulnerability of the victims as a major aggravating factor.
"It is not merely the exposure of innocent children to the venality of this adult crime that aggravates the offence. Even more, it is the fact that children are particularly vulnerable to crimes such as this, because they are relatively easy to abduct, confine and control, and of course, it is difficult to conceive of a more coercive way of inducing a person to pay a ransom demand than by kidnapping his or her small and defenceless child."
Nguyen's lawyer told the court that her client had gotten into debt borrowing money to invest in day-trading accounts. He took out loans at extraordinarily high interest rates, became desperate, and the enterprise became a means to bail himself out of debt.
The defence lawyer asked for a sentence at the lower end of the range, while the Crown asked for a sentence of between 12 and 14 years. The judge ordered that Nguyen provide a DNA sample and that he be banned from possessing firearms for 10 years.
The kidnapping incident began when three men, one of them brandishing a gun, forced their way into the children's home, confronted their mother, Eliza Wong, and demanded money and access to a safe. When she insisted there was no money or a safe, the men grabbed the kids and placed them in the trunk of the mom's Lincoln Towncar.
The vehicle was driven to a high-rise apartment in Surrey and, along the way, the little girl was handed a cellphone and asked to relay ransom demands to her mother for $20,000 and then $200,000. When the vehicle was driven into the underground parking lot, the girl managed to pop open the latch of the trunk and climb out.
She tried to leave the parking complex but a gate and the doors were closed so she climbed back into the car, leaving the trunk open just wide enough so she and her brother could breathe.
A short while later, a couple who live in the building drove into the lot and rescued the kids, about 90 minutes after they'd been removed from their home.
kfraser@theprovince.com
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