The river of trouble for the 2006 GOP nominee in the 47th Congressional district, Tan Nguyen, is getting deeper. New charges have been filed by federal prosecutors alleging that not only did Nguyen encourage someone to mislead investigators, he did so himself as well.
In October 2006 Tan Nguyen’s campaign was responsible for the mailing of 14,000 Spanish language letters to voters with Latino surnames and/or were born in Latin-American countries stating the immigrants cannot vote and the if they do they will go to jail. The letters were fraudulently sent on letterhead using the name of the California Coalition for Immigration Reform, an anti-illegal immigrant group. While the letters were widely believed to have the intent of intimidating voters no charges were brought on that matter. Instead Nguyen got tripped up on charges of obstructing the investigation by the California Department of Justice.
Martin Wisckol points out in his OC Register story here that the new charges increase his possible jail time if convicted to 40 years. Wisckol also reports that Tan Nguyen’s new attorney Dean Steward is claiming that the new charges demonstrate “the retaliatory hand of Rep. Loretta Sanchez.”
“The retaliatory hand of Rep. Loretta Sanchez seems to loom over this new indictment, and the defense seeks a hearing to determine what role Rep. Sanchez had in the added felony charge,†Steward writes in his motion filed on Saturday to dismiss the charges.
That’s kind of funny in the context of Nguyen’s 2006 not so veiled threat made against LiberalOC founder Mike Lawson when he reported on vandalized Tan Nguyen campaign signs.
Mr. Nguyen said that he has a lot of supporters that are “passionate†and he would “hate to see anyone get hurt.â€
Even more funny since I just read this post from Mike’s current blog What Some Would Call Lies.
man i hope they lock him up.