Death Penalty Sought in Asian Boyz Slayings

VAN NUYS —  Saying that the defendants showed no mercy for the dozens of people they assaulted, wounded and killed, prosecutors asked jurors in Van Nuys on Tuesday for the death penalty for four Asian Boyz gang members.

“Our laws recognize that some people commit crimes that are so evil, so outrageous and so heinous that they don’t deserve to live,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Laura Baird said. “That’s what these four have done by their conduct in 1995.”

Last month, seven Asian Boyz gang members were convicted for their participation in six murders and 10 attempted murders over a one-year period. The jury also found special circumstances, making Bunthoeun Roeung, Sothi Menh, Roatha Buth and Son Thanh Bui eligible for the death penalty, leading to a second trial on the issue of punishment.

During the penalty trial, prosecutors Baird and Hoon Chun told the jury about more crimes, including three other murders that the defendants are alleged to have committed.

Prosecutors also hammered on the details of the five shootings that began with the ambush of a rival Latino gang on the Lunar New Year 1995.

The gang members are also suspected of having the father of the state’s key witness--a gang member turned state’s evidence--killed on his doorstep in San Jose during the trial. No charges have been filed.

Defense lawyers were scheduled to offer reasons that the jury should instead recommend life without the possibility of parole, based on the plaintive testimony of their relatives, teachers and employers. Mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters and a son have taken the stand over the past few days and asked that the defendants’ lives be spared.

The most elaborate defense has been that of Buth, whose lawyer is expected to argue that his client was led to a life of gangs and crime by a violent and hostile youth, first in the Cambodian “killing fields” then in racially divided Van Nuys.