An O.C. Viet man was sentenced today to 30 years-to-life for the death of an unborn child killed while he was fleeing from the police and getting on the freeway in the wrong direction.
Hung Van Mai (pictured), 37, Santa Ana, was previously found guilty of one felony count of murder, one felony count of evading while driving recklessly and a true finding on the sentencing enhancement for causing great bodily injury. Mai is a two-striker, with an existing 1990 conviction for assault with a firearm.
The imposed sentence of 30 years to life is the maximum Mai was facing.
At today’s sentencing hearing in Orange County Superior Court, the unborn child’s mother testified that all she had of her son is “a patch of grass and a headstone.” The father “discussed the sadness he felt at knowing he would never get to raise his son and teach him to do the right things in life,” according to the OCDA’s press release.
The killing arose out of routine night-time traffic check in 2006, when Mai was stopped for having tinted windows. As officers flagged him, Mai refused to stop and started running away, leading police on a high-speed chase on surface streets, at times reaching 65 mph.
In an effort to escape, Mai even turned off his headlights and ran blind. Running north on Harbor, Mai turned the wrong way onto the Freeway 22 exit ramp.
When he realized he had driven up the wrong ramp, Mai swerved and tried to U-turn. A car that was exiting slammed into the side of Mai’s car. The whole thing was capture on a camera on a police car.
Driving the car was then-22-year-old Anthony Moore. Sitting in the passenger was his girlfriend, Sully Portillo, at the time also 22 years old. Portillo was eight months pregnant.
Her fetus died.
Full text of the DA’s press release can be found here.
This is a truly sad story.