Va. man pleads guilty after using Facebook to stalk, harass his ex-girlfriend
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Version 0 of 1. Nam Quoc Hoang started dating Thanh Do in May 2013. He even lived with her family in Virginia for a couple of months. By December of that year, Do had broken up with him. But Hoang, 43, started calling her again, driving by her house and following her. He posted explicit photographs of her on Facebook. He broke into her house and stole thousands of dollars worth of purses and jewelry. Weeks later, he learned from her Facebook account that she would be at a club in D.C. So he went there and followed her out. He then threatened her with a gun, forcing her to let him into her car. He slapped her and yelled at her for more than an hour as she drove. Do told police that her ex-boyfriend suspected that she had cheated on him and wanted to teach her a lesson. Hoang pleaded guilty Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Alexandria to three felonies, including interstate domestic violence and stalking. The case is an example of how modern technology has allowed people to carry out harassment and stalking both in person and over the Internet. Hoang, among other things, admitted that he demanded money from Do, telling her that if he did not get it, he would in post nude photographs of her online. When she ignored him, he published them. “I did follow Ms. Thanh and harassed her, I did do that,” he said in court through an interpreter. “I caused her fear.” Hoang carried out some of his crimes with the help of a friend, Khoa Dang Hoang, who helped him break into Do’s house when she was not home. Khoa Hoang also used his Facebook account to help Nam Hoang stalk Do, because she was no longer connected with her ex-boyfriend on the social-media service. Khoa Hoang told police that Nam Hoang wanted to see if Do was dating someone else. Khoa Hoang drove his friend to the club where he attacked Do, following her in his car so Nam Hoang could get out and force his way into her vehicle. He followed them to a 7-Eleven near her home in Maryland, where Nam Hoang let Do out of the car. “She was crying and all that stuff, made a big deal out of nothing,” Khoa Hoang said Nam Hoang told him afterward. Khoa Hoang went to trial in May and was found guilty on two stalking charges. Nam Hoang has been arrested 25 times and has seven previous felony convictions, according to Fairfax County police. He is a citizen of Vietnam who came to the United States legally in 1993 but lost his permanent residency in 2003 because of a felony conviction. Nam Hoang told Judge T.S. Ellis III that he had never had a job in the United States, apart from a brief period when he worked at a bar his family owned in Fairfax County’s Eden Center. “It’s likely, if not certain, that you will be deported from the United States at the completion of your sentence,” Ellis told Nam Hoang in court Tuesday. But it is not clear if that will happen. Nam Hoang has stayed in the country despite multiple felony convictions because Vietnam will accept the return of criminal citizens only if they landed in the United States after July 1995. Nam Hoang faces up to 30 years in prison. A defense attorney for him declined to comment. |