Life Term Reduced in Anaheim Girl’s Kidnaping

A Garden Grove man who was sentenced to life in prison for his role in the kidnaping of an 11-year-old girl for a ransom in gold could be free for the holidays following a new sentence issued Friday in Santa Ana.

Lang Van Nguyen, 23, was given a 7-year term by Orange County Superior Court Judge Leonard H. McBride. Because he has served more than 6 years in state prison with time accrued for good behavior, Nguyen could be freed at any time, barring a holiday backlog of paper work, his attorney, Franz Miller, said.

Nguyen was convicted Nov. 14 of one count of kidnaping. The verdict followed a mistrial in August resulting from a hung jury, and came after the state Court of Appeal overturned a Sept. 2, 1983, conviction for which he was given a life term.

McBride could have reimposed the life term. Nguyen has spent the last 6 1/4 years at the state prison in Soledad.

Nguyen was convicted of participating in the Sept. 21, 1982, kidnaping of Anh Dao Thi Nguyen while she walked to school with her 7-year-old brother in Anaheim. The victim is not related to Nguyen.

Her abductors had planned to snatch the two children and take their apartment key to use in a burglary, Miller said.

But the little boy, who had the key, ran away, and the kidnapers then took the girl to a house in Anaheim and decided to demand a ransom of 200 ounces of gold, apparently believing that the girl’s parents were wealthy, he said.

Nguyen and Vy Xuan Le, 25, of Santa Ana were arrested the next day after undercover police officers accompanied the girl’s mother to a parking lot near the Garden Grove Freeway where the kidnapers were to pick up the gold.

Officers were led to the house where the girl had been held captive for 37 hours. They stormed the two-story home and arrested Minh Nguyen, 23, of Santa Ana and Lan Rolsen, 29, of Anaheim.

Officers dove through a front window, kicked down a locked door to the second floor and found the blindfolded girl on a bed.

Le and Minh Nguyen, also not related to the victim, are serving life terms for the crime. Rolsen served 5 years in a state women’s prison and has been released.