Bolsavik.com

A Vietnamese-American car salesman, once called “the nicest killer I’ve ever met” by the cop who nailed him, was sentenced today to 63 years to life in prison for the death of a 15-year-old girl who was working as a prostitute, according to a press release from the Orange County D.A.’s office.

Jonathan Phong Khanh Tran, 23, of Garden Grove (pictured right), had been convicted in March of last year of one felony count of murder, two felony counts of forcible rape, and one felony count of oral copulation under the color of authority. The jury also found as true the sentencing enhancements for being armed with a firearm during sexual offenses.

Tran’s victim was 15-year-old Hanna Montesorri, who had run away from her Georgia home and was working along Harbor Boulevard in Santa Ana as a prostitute. Hanna Montesorri was the great-great-granddaughter of ”the” Montessorri, the founder of the schools and educational method bearing her name.

According to the prosecution, in January 2004 Tran drove to Harbor Boulevard, spotted Montesorri, picked her up in his truck and drove away with the victim. He then tried to rape her. To escape, Montessori jumped from the moving truck.  She was later found lying in the street bleeding profusely from the head and died a short time afterwards from massive brain damage. 

At his trial, it took the jury only 90 minutes to reach their unanimous verdict. In addition to the murder of Montessori, Tran was also convicted of assaulting and raping three other women in the same area of Harbor Boulevard. In one instance, Tran showed the victim a badge and forced her to orally copulate him to avoid arrest for prostitution.

Tran was, in fact, not a cop. He was a well-educated, well-dressed, nice young Nissan car salesman who was engaged to be married. His entire family was shocked at his dark side. According to Tran’s mother, he had bought her a new Nissan Altima shortly before his arrest.

The OC Weekly’s Scott Moxley had this in-depth report here on Tran and his crimes. Also read Moxley’s report from the last day of Tran’s trial here. That’s where Moxley quoted Santa Ana homicide detective Dean Fulcher as saying Tran is “the nicest killer I’ve ever met.”

Garden Grove City Councilwoman and supervisor candidate Dina Nguyen (pictured; no relations to the incumbent Orange County Supervisor Janet Nguyen, but if you care enough to read this then you probably know it already) sat down with the Bolsavik on Wednesday and spoke of her campaign, how she’s sure she would win – and how she defines a “win” as forcing Janet into a November runoff, though she thinks she has a chance at an outright June victory as well.

The non-partisan election for supervisor is set for June 3. There are three candidates in the running, all Vietnamese: Janet, Dina, and Hoa Van Tran the lone Democrat. If no candidates receive more than 50% of the votes, the top two will go into a runoff election.

Talking with Dina, you can tell there’s no love lost between her and Janet. She criticized Janet for not “working directly with the people of the First District and instead would allow her staff Andrew Do and Nick Lecong to communicate for her.” (The references to Do and Lecong indicates that Dina meant the Vietnamese-American people of the First District.)

So, what does Dina think of Nick Lecong anyway?

Big long silence.

And then, “You can quote that I’m speechless when it comes to him,” Dina said. No surprises there. Nick Lecong has been the subject of numerous rumors running around town, and Dina doesn’t want to be seen as stoking those rumors. (Neither does the Bolsavik, so don’t ask. Won’t tell.)

Dina also disagrees with the way Janet has been allocating money. It’s “not fair, not logical,” she said, adding: “You can’t buy a new dress when you don’t have three meals a day.”

The $3-million pedestrian bridge across Bolsa Avenue? “It’s a new dress,” she said.

“So, if you’re elected, you’ll take back the bridge?” the Bolsavik asked.

“I’ll listen to the cities if I’m elected,” Dina finessed.

“So you’re not taking it back?”

“It depends on what the people in Westminster say. I don’t think they’ll say they want the bridge.”

Although Dina admits that she has a strategy to force Janet into a runoff, she’s not dismissing the possibility of winning outright in June.

“It depends on the turnout. If the turnout is mostly Vietnamese, I have a good chance,” Dina says.

Dina then recounts a scenario that’s been stated by many analysts: There are no other significant races in the June election, only the supervisor’s race. If people say, “Oh, there are three Vietnamese, let them fight it out,” then all non-Viets stay home and Dina wins the Viet vote. (The assumption that Dina will win among the Viets is extrapolated from the results of the 2007 special elections. In that race, academic pollster Chris Collet found that 6% more Viet voters went for Trung Nguyen than for Janet Nguyen.)

The issue of immigration came up during the conversation. Dina defends her trip with the Van Tran gang to the border. She told the Bolsavik:

“Flying down to the border is not for or against immigrants. My purpose was to see what the border project was about, and in fact I would suggest that people on both sides of the issue go down and observe what’s going on.”

Her own observations led to this conclusion:

“I concluded that it is a peaceful deterrent to illegal immigrants from passing the border. To a point, it works. Not only that, it tells me that we’re secure from certain things like drug trafficking, terrorism. It deals with our security.”

The visit to the border also gave her one particular point of comfort. “Before I went, I had this concern about the Minutemen, and how they were running around enforcing their own laws. But the border guards told me they were very in control of the Minutemen. That was my concern with civilian vigilantes.”

(Continued: Who’s who and who’s not, in the Dina Nguyen campaign, here)