DAI CHUNG NEWS MEDIA INCORPORATED       ]
d/b/a DAI CHUNG BIWEEKLY NEWSPAPER          ]
10515 Summit Avenue                                                    ]
Kensington, Maryland 20895,                                       ]

                                                                                           ]

and                                                                                    ]

                                                                                           ]

HUNG NGOC NGO                                                         ]
2304 Westmoreland Avenue                                         ]
Falls Church, Virginia 22096,                                         ]
                                                                                           ]

VIETNAMESE PUBLIC RADIO, INC.                         ]
900 S. Washington Street, Suite 302                            ]
Falls Church, VA 22046,                                                 ]
        Serve registered agent Hung Ngo                        ]
        2304 Westmoreland Street                                     ]
        Falls Church, Virginia 22046,                                 ]
                                                                                           ]
                                                                                           ]

COMMITTEE FOR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN VIETNAM INC ]
8001 Bradley Boulevard                                                 ]
Bethesda 20817,                                                              ]
        Serve registered agent                                           ]
        Ngo Thi Hien at the corporate address,              ]
                                                                                           ]

NGUYEN HONG THAI                                                  ]
11525 Dragonfire Way                                                   ]
Germantown, Maryland 20876,                                     ]
                                                                                           ]

THANG DINH NGUYEN                                               ]
6400 Arlington Blvd, Suite 640                                     ]
Falls Church, Virginia 22042,                                         ]
                                                                                           ]

BOAT PEOPLE S.O.S., INC.                                          ]
6066 Leesburg Pike                                                         ]
Falls Church, Virginia 22041,                                         ]
        Serve Registered agent                                          ]
        Nguyen Dinh Thang                                              ]
        6400 Arlington Boulevard, Suite 640                   ]
        Arlington, Virginia 22042-2336                              ]
        And serve also same registered agent                 ]
        at above address for corporation;                        ]
                                                                                           ]

TRAN NGHI HOANG                                                     ]
8552 Tyrolean Way                                                         ]
Springfield, Virginia 22153,                                             ]
                                                                                            ]

LE PHAI, INC.                                                                  ]
d/b/a Le Phai Newspaper                                                ]
8552 Tyrolean Way                                                         ]
Springfield, Virginia 22153,                                             ]
        Serve registered agent                                            ]
        Tien Van Tran                                                          ]
        at the above address,                                             ]
                                                                                           ]
and                                                                                     ]
                                                                                            ]

JOHN DOES as follows:                                                 ]
                                                                                            ]

JOHN DOE #1                                                                  ]
Whose real name is presently unknown, but             ]
who, under the pen name LE MINH NGOC,               ]
writes in the Le Phai weekly newspaper                      ]
articles that defame the plaintiffs and cast                  ]
the plaintiffs in a false light that are then                    ]
broadcast on the programs of defendant VPR,           ]
                                                                                            ]
JOHN DOE #2                                                                   ]
Whose real name is presently unknown, but              ]
who, under the pen name LE TAM writes and           ]
publishes articles on the website internetyahoo/thaoluan ]
that defame the plaintiffs and cast them in a false light ]
that are then broadcast on defendant VPR’s programs,]

JOHN DOE #3                                                                 ]
Whose real name is presently unknown, but who    ]
broadcasts and hosts on VPR programs under the  ]
broadcast name HUY DUC matter that defames the ]
plaintiffs and casts them in a false light in such        ]
manner as to stir up members of the audience and   ]
threaten the plaintiffs with threats that include violence, ]
                                                                                          ]
JOHN DOE #4                                                                 ]
Whose real name is presently unknown, but who    ]
broadcasts and hosts on VPR programs under the  ]
broadcast name HOANG LAN matter that defames the ]
plaintiffs and casts them in a false light in such        ]
manner as to stir up members of the audience and   ]
threaten the plaintiffs with threats that include violence, ]
                                                                                          ]
JOHN DOE #5                                                                 ]
Whose real name is presently unknown, but who   ]
broadcasts and hosts on VPR programs under the ]
broadcast name LE THI matter that defames the      ]
plaintiffs and casts them in a false light in such       ]
manner as to stir up members of the audience and  ]
threaten the plaintiffs with threats that include violence, ]
                                                                                          ]
JOHN DOE #6                                                                 ]
Whose real name is presently unknown, but who    ]
broadcasts and hosts on VPR programs under the  ]
broadcast name THANH TIN matter that defames the ]
plaintiffs and casts them in a false light in such        ]
manner as to stir up members of the audience and   ]
threaten the plaintiffs with threats that include violence, ]
                                                                                           ]
JOHN DOE #7                                                                  ]
Whose real name is presently unknown, but who     ]
broadcasts and hosts on VPR programs under the   ]
broadcast name HONG HANH matter that defames the ]
plaintiffs and casts them in a false light in such         ]
manner as to stir up members of the audience and    ]
threaten the plaintiffs with threats that include violence, ]
                                                                                            ]
Defendants.                                                                      ]

Plaintiffs, Hoai Thanh and Dai Chung, Incorporated, allege as follows:

COMPOSITION OF VIETNAMESE LANGUAGE MEDIA MARKET AND INDUSTRY IN THE UNITED STATES

35. At all relevant times, the individual defendants Thang Dinh Nguyen, Hien Thi Ngo, and Hung Ngoc Ngo, and those working with them in their associated-in-fact enterprise, have sought to dominate the narrow market for Vietnamese language media in the United States through the use of the instrumentality of the defendant Vietnamese Public Radio, Inc.
36. They operate through their instrumentalities, Committee for Religious Freedom in Vietnam, Inc., headed by defendant Hien Thi Ngo, and Boat People S.O.S., Inc., headed by defendant Thang Dinh Nguyen, as well as Vietnamese Public Radio, Inc. to give a veneer of being solely for the public good, with no profit accruing to themselves, with constant solicitations for donations and funds over the multi-state broadcasting system of VPR to create the impression of being solely for the good of the community from which they receive no profit or remuneration. In reality they reap large profits from a number of fraudulent schemes of private inurement out of the donations that they solicit and receive through commingling of funds, laundering of funds, diversion of funds from the stated purposes that they use to raise the funds and otherwise use the funds to maintain and operate their enterprises to harm any who dare to seek accountability from them, verification of their claims, or even question what happens to the proceeds of their solicited donations.
37. The Vietnamese language media market in the United States is small, perhaps 1.2 million nationwide. Even in an important metro area such as this Washington, D.C. area, it numbers no more than seventy-five thousand. It is a relatively isolated market for historic reasons: the Vietnamese community here is by and large an émigré community comprised of those who stood with us in the Vietnam War and then had to leave because they did so. They remember how, starting with the Tet offensive, their and our victories, fighting side by side, were cast by our media as defeats. The Vietnamese community in America, therefore, looks to its own media for most of its news, not trusting completely our main stream media.
38. Yet there are a large number of Vietnamese language newspapers in every Vietnamese metro area, all of them small, and mostly surviving by paid advertising aimed at the Vietnamese language community. In this metro area of Washington, D.C., for example, there are 13 Vietnamese language newspapers.
39. By reaching into many states through the defendant VPR the defendants are able to dominate in such a narrow market as, in the days of only three major nationwide regular broadcast networks, CBS, NBC, and ABC, the mainstream networks could dominate. According to VPR’s website, it broadcasts or relays in 20 cities nationwide and reaches at least 24 cities. It reaches Washington, D.C., Maryland, including Baltimore, Virginia, and has locations in Wichita, KS, Atlanta, GA, Tampa Bay, FL, Austin, TX, St. Louis, MO, Kansas City, KS, Boston, MA, Portland, OR, Philadelphia, PA, New Orleans, LA, Grand Rapids, MI, Denver CO, Oklahoma City, OK, Baton Rouge LA, Louisville, KY, Biloxi, MS, Seattle WA, Dallas TX, and Lincoln NE. The VPR broadcast system also reaches audiences in Arizona, California, New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey. No other Vietnamese language media has this kind of coordinated, nationwide reach and it is this reach upon which the defendants impose their command structure.
40. This market structure has enabled the defendants, in recent years, and has facilitated them, in the planning, implementation, operation, and funding, of a pattern of racketeering activity and conspiracy to conduct the same, by posing as non-profit, do good entities while in reality reaping large and handsome private inurements for the three principal heads of the defendants’ associated-in-fact enterprise and engaging in the pattern of racketeering complained of in this complaint.

(Federal Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act-Pattern of Racketeering Activity)

48. Plaintiffs restate and incorporate all the preceding paragraphs of this complaint.
49. This claim for relief is asserted against each of the defendants and arises under 18 U.S.C. § 1962 (c) as to all defendants and also (d) as to the individual defendants among themselves as an associated-in-fact enterprise.
50. At all relevant times, each of the defendants was a "person" within the meaning of 18 U.S.C. § 1961(3), as each of the defendants was "capable of holding a legal or beneficial interest in property."
51. At all relevant times, the defendants Thang Dinh Nguyen, Hien Thi Ngo, and Hung Ngoc Ngo led and directed an associated-in-fact "enterprise" within the meaning of 18 U.S.C. § 1961(4) that was constituted of themselves, the other individual defendants and also the three corporate defendants as their controlled instrumentalities. This associated-in-fact enterprise is ongoing and it has an ascertainable structure with these three as its directors and Thang Dinh Nguyen functioning as its chairman and the other defendants having assigned and ascertainable roles within it. The three corporate defendants are also "enterprises" within their own right. These enterprises are ongoing and have purposes beyond the scope of the predicate acts alleged in this complaint and beyond the conspiracy of the defendants in forming and operating and maintaining this associated-in-fact enterprise. The purpose and function of the main associated-in-fact enterprise is to maximize the defendants’ control of Vietnamese-language media in the United States and dominate fundraising in interstate and foreign commerce in the Vietnamese language media markets and correspondingly dominate allegedly charitable giving in the Vietnamese language community in America for anti-Communist and purportedly charitable purposes in this country and for Communist-controlled Vietnam and also to dominate contacts between the Vietnamese language community and the wider American community in a public relations sense, especially with members of Congress and the non-Vietnamese language media. The three corporate defendants as sub-enterprises participate as instrumentalities in this effort. Each enterprise engages in, and its activities affect, interstate and foreign commerce.
52. Each defendant has been associated with this associated-in-fact enterprise and has conducted or participated in its operations and activities, directly or indirectly, through a pattern of racketeering activity in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1962(c). The three defendants Thang Dinh Nguyen, Hien Thi Ngo, and Hung Ngoc Ngo, have directed the associated-in-fact enterprise and the corporate defendants, each of which is headed by one of them in such pattern of racketeering activity. Defendants’ pattern of racketeering activity dates from at least 1998 and continues to the present and will continue into the indefinite future unless halted as a result of legal action. Defendants’ multiple predicate acts of racketeering include:

1. Mail and wire fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1341 and 1343. Defendants engaged and are continuing to engage in schemes to deceive and defraud members of the Vietnamese language public in the United States. These schemes have involved fraudulent misrepresentations and omissions reasonably calculated to deceive the Vietnamese language public that listens to the broadcast system of the defendant VPR in 22 states, deceiving individuals that are persons of ordinary prudence and comprehension. They also involve "lulling" and the suppression of the truth about the fraudulent activities of the defendants. They execute these schemes by wire and radio transmission in Interstate Commerce and by the United States mail.

1. Defendant VPR’s broadcasts of programs by and about the defendant Committee for Religious Freedom’s activities supposedly in assisting the victims of flood relief in Vietnam and in helping religious figures there in such efforts, broadcasts in which the defendant Thang and his company, Boat People SOS, participated, communicated over the VPR broadcast system, were designed to and did solicit funds, which were paid to VPR and CRFV by the use of the U.S. mail and interstate wire communications to transfer credit, pursuant to deceptions about what the defendants had in mind to do with the funds and what they did do with the funds, a deception which they still continue.
2. Defendants’ programs directed toward individual Vietnamese-speaking Americans such as the individual plaintiff, and small businesses in the Vietnamese media market, such as the plaintiff bi-weekly newspaper, were designed to solicit funds and favorable public relations and press mention under false pretenses, as alleged, and in doing so to create a dominance by the defendants of Vietnamese public language media on a national basis, in every state where there is a sizeable Vietnamese-speaking population. These broadcasts containing these deceptions are broadcast every week three or four times and have been so broadcast for many years.
3. The plaintiff Hoai Thanh was favorably impressed by these broadcasts and gave donations, writing checks and giving cash in 1997 and then from time to time up through 2000, and to the end of the year 2001 and for a while afterwards and continued to be favorably impressed with what he was led to believe were the good and charitable works of the defendants to which the claimed they devoted "most" of the funds that they solicited and received for the promoted good purposes. Hoai Thanh’s bi-weekly newspaper, the plaintiff Dai Chung Bi-weekly Newspaper, gave the defendants favorable mention in the writings it contained. Some of the defendants advertised in the Dai Chung newspaper, advertising their supposed good works as part of the deception, placing ads over the interstate wires and using the mail.
4. In the early spring of 2001, however, the plaintiff Hoai Thanh began to wonder about the use of the proceeds that they were raising by the defendants, particularly their claim to have transmitted large sums of money to Vietnam for assistance to flood victims there through the liason of one Father Ly, a well known Catholic priest in Vietnam. In issue number 68 of Dai Chung Bi-weekly Newspaper, published March 1, 2001, plaintiff Hoai Thanh and his plaintiff newspaper raised the question for their Vietnamese language readership in the Washington, D.C. interstate metro area and nationwide in states such as Pennsylvania, of what was happening to the funds that the defendants were raising through the CRFV programs on VPR several times every week in which the defendants Thang Dinh Nguyen and Boat People participated. They did so merely in a questioning manner and for many months thereafter tried to work with the defendants to try and make the public understand what was going on, still trying to support the defendants’ efforts in the hopes of giving the public a clearer understanding, including accepting documents from the defendants that the defendants claimed would support the defendants’ representations.
5. As a result of that questioning in the plaintiff Dai Chung newspaper, the defendants began a campaign through the CRFV and Boat People broadcasting over VPR of "lulling" in which they sought to convince the plaintiffs and others similarly situated in the American Vietnamese-speaking population and among the local Vietnamese language publications in the many states to which their broadcasts were transmitted that the defendants could account for their use of funds that they had solicited and obtained by means of wire, radio transmission and mail in interstate commerce. Plaintiffs tried to cooperate with these efforts and only after a year or more had to reluctantly conclude that these representations were a further implementation of the defendants’ pattern of racketeering activity. The defendants never did and could not account for their use of the funds for the purposes that they falsely and fraudulently claimed that they were for and the representations made over the interstate wire and radio that the defendants could and had accounted for their use of the funds were a further fraud of deception and omission using interstate wire, radio and mail. Continuing the deception and omission with this "lulling" against the plaintiffs and others similarly situated in the Vietnamese-speaking community in America, the defendants raised further funds which came in by U. S. mail and wiring of credit to the defendants to, as defendant Thai Hong Nguyen put it, "hurt" those such as the plaintiffs who dared to question the defendants’ use of funds.
6. Ultimately the defendants carried this "lulling" to further fool the Vietnamese-speaking community in the United States through their broadcasts to the extent of filing baseless lawsuits against the plaintiffs and others who questioned the defendants’ use of funds and then further fraudulently claiming that they were winning these lawsuits when they were not, misrepresenting what was happening in the courts in order to fraudulently raise further funds by fraudulent misrepresentations and omissions in order to "lull" the audience into believing that their false representations and omissions were being vindicated in the courts.
7. Defendants made false and fraudulent statements under oath and penalty of perjury in these law suits and then broadcast these false and fraudulent statements nationwide through the VPR system. The defendants affirmatively denied their fraudulent representations and their failure to use the funds they solicited and raised as they had represented they would use the funds.

2. Interference with commerce by threats or violence in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1951. As the plaintiffs persisted in questioning the use of funds by the defendants contrary to the defendants’ representations in the defendants’ interstate radio programs, the defendants initiated a campaign of threats of violence and intimidation against the plaintiffs in a pattern of racketeering activity that the defendants knew full well would lead to attempts of violence against the plaintiff Hoai Thanh, as it did do.

1. Repeatedly, week after week, month after month, year after year and right up to the present, the defendants broadcast through the VPR system indicating that the plaintiffs were communists. In the context of the Vietnamese language community here in the U.S., this is not an abstraction but a concrete defamation among those who fought communism, bled and died in doing so, saw their country of birth taken over by a brutal communist regime and have witnessed atrocities against their country and its people ever since. The constant accusation of being a communist can cause intimidation and violence as defendants well know.

1. In one of a thousand examples, in a broadcast over VPR October 6, 2001, while other defendants were still purporting to be working with the plaintiffs to clarify matters for the Vietnamese public and support their claims, the defendant Huy Duc set a tone, saying:

2. These representations were all false and known to defendants to be false. In fact the plaintiff Hoai Thanh served in the Vietnam War against the communists in the army of the late, lamented Republic of South Vietnam. He was an intelligence officer working closely with the American military as a liaison. The plaintiff newspaper, by any objective standard, has been anti-Communist in its content throughout its existence.
3. The aim of the defendants is to supplant and displace those like the plaintiffs who are publishing and working against communism in their work in the Vietnamese community with a fraudulent version of anti-communist activities that is a cover for their personal power and inurement.

2. In a further attempt to stir up threats against the plaintiff Hoai Thanh, the defendants also broadcast week after week, month after month, year after year, purported documents setting out fraudulent misrepresentations and omissions about the plaintiff Hoai Thanh in his personal businesses other than the defendant newspaper. On September 2, 2004, for example, the defendants broadcast a purported letter saying that plaintiff Thanh had defrauded and cheated innocent Vietnamese business people in America of tens of thousands of dollars. The representations were false, known to be false and were deliberately misleading. They repeated this broadcast on or around December 23, 2005 and again shortly after Christmas.
3. Here is an actual broadcast transcript from some broadcasts:

Operator: Good evening, Vietnam Radio Overseas listeners. My name is Ngo Ngoc Hung. [Defendant Hung Ngoc Ngo] Today we would like to provide you with the correspondence response program, Sunday, October 21, 2001. Tonight we have a lot of important things to share with you. Please stay tuned. First of all, we sincerely thank audience members who have been donating to the station and who offer continued support by sending us their comments. You will be receiving a thank you letter from us this week.

UM1: About this daily newspaper, I think you already know that there is only 1 part that we would like you take a look at: page 27, Print No. 71. There is the list of the formal delegates visiting Vietnam with Mr. Nguyen Tuan. You will see the communist flag in this newspaper. As far as we know, it is probably copied from the Communist Quan Doi Nhan Dan newspaper and a Communist website. That’s why there is a Vietnamese communist flag. Perhaps you will understand where the truth is. Please read those pages.

Sorry, please wait for a second.

The reason why we had some trouble responding to you is the amount of money for flood relief in central Vietnam. Almost the whole amount has been sent to the current leaders in Vietnam, who perform excellent social activities as well as a very high merit of fighting. They are listed as follows: First, farther Nguyen van Ly, Superior monk Thich Thai Hoa, farther Giai, farther Loi and the sisters and the Buddhist charity groups. As you know, even though people like farther Ly and farther Giai experienced some difficulties at that time, they were still able to perform social activities. However, up till now, their fighting has not been strong enough. Therefore, we also expected some suspects in the flood relief issue. This was what we did wrong during the period of flood relief. If you have the flood relief document, you will see page No. T16. When opening this page, you will see the posted date of March 27, 2000. The Committee of Freedom Religious (CFR) has sent to farther Ly (You will see: Nguyen Van Ly, Hue, Vietnam and the account number) the amount of $31,000 (please open the document), which was wire-transferred from the bank of the CRFV to farher. Ly’s bank account, which is Vietcombank, 46 Hung vuong, Hue, Viet nam, and the account of farther Nguyen Van Ly as well. That was our mistake, because in the United States of America when you sign an over-$10,000 check, the check will be investigated. The reason for this law is that they want people of notorious background, especially "money launderers", which means that they send their money from one bank to another. Therefore any amount of over $10,000 must be sent through this system. That was the mistake of the CRFV.

UF1: Hello.

UM2: Yes, I’m listening.

UF1: Hello, I have a comment. I live in Boston. I turned 70 this year. I have heard what you said on the radio about sabotage and I have a question about the amount. It is said that "don’t let your left hand know the charity done by the right hand" [a Vietnamese idiom]. How much did those people donate while they keep sabotaging? Mrs. Ngo Thi Hien works for the community . . . It is said not to share the same language. Most of the times they call the radio station to ask for help in everything. I think those people could have been sent here by Viet Cong to commit sabotage. "Receive benefit from the state but worship the communism" [fixed expression]. You should not be dependent on them. Vietnamese people living here are all anti-communists, not just a few individuals. Therefore you don’t have to hold talks with them to be truthful and upright. Being truthful and upright is a matter for hundreds or thousands of people, not just for them. Put them aside. To tell you the truth, if those people lived next to my house, I might have stabbed them to death.

Operator: Thank you very much.

UM2: My name is Minh. Good evening Ms. Ngo Thi Hien. [defendant Hien Thi Ngo] I have been with the station for quite a long time and I know that you have made a great contribution. I would like to make a suggestion about bringing an action against Dai Chung newspaper. I think you shouldn’t do that because what we did is for justice and Dai Chung newspaper is the unfounded saboter, supported by the domestic Communists.

Mrs. Ngo Thi Hien: Mr. Minh, pardon me for interrupting you here. Do you think we should surrender or defeat communism? In Vietnam, we can surrender to communism because there is no law but the law of the jungle, but here we need money. I don’t think it will become the second O.J. Simpson.

Mrs. Ngo Thi Hien: October 6, 2001.

What can we do while South of Vietnam is getting worse and worse? Two difficult years have resulted in extreme poverty amoung the poor, taking the lives of many innocent citizens, especially of ill-fated children. In the spirit of "blood is thicker than water" [Literally, means "if the blood is split, the gut turns soft"], we appeal to your charitable hearts, who wish to mollify some of the poverty, misery and calamity descending to our consanguineous people. You may wish to send a check to: Vietnamese Committee of Free Religion, P.O Box 342111. MD 20827. All donations for flood relief to Committee of Free Religion are tax exempted.

We really appreciate it.

Best regards,

UF3: Mr. Banh, from Maryland.

Mr. Banh: Good evening Ms. Hien, Ms. Hoang Lan and the audience of the Vietnam Radio Overseas. Dai Chung newspaper has criticized the donation of relief and has sabotaged the Radio of the Free Vietnamese behind the radio announcer’s back, such as Ms. Ngo Thi Hien, has barred our voice and jobs. I have told Dai Chung newspaper...this is an application of the law of the jungle like that of the Viet Cong. Many people complainted that Mrs. Hien is as gentle in her character as her name [Hien means "Gentle" in Vietnamese]. What a pity that you are so courteous. If I were you, they would not get out of my house. After their being knocked out in my house, I would have police pull their body out. And this sabotage is to stifle our voice and bar our relief fund in the future. From this, our fellow-citizens can see the purpose of Dai Chung newspaper. I think the fellow countrymen and the audiences will support the words of anti-communists.

Mrs. Ngo Thi Hien: Good evening.

Now Mr. Hien, please. Good evening, Mr. Hien.

Mr. Hien: Yes. Good evening Mrs. Ngo Thi Hien, Ms. Minh and others at the station. I think that what Mr. Sinh just said was unfounded. Since we are in Tesla, we don’t know what rag Dai Chung newspaper is. Honestly, we did not know anything until we heard from the radio. Do you know which state that newspaper is based in? The way they combat is quite a sabotage. According to your station, they have strong support. perhaps they have a lot of money to hire an attorney, as in Kim Xuan’s case. I would also like it if audiences would support the station so that it can have an attorney bring an action against/sue them. Otherwise they represent a group of people. It means that we fight against communism and they are against us, so it means they are some force. We also expect that the audience will support our legislation fund to bring them to court. Bye.

Mrs. Ngo Thi Hien: Thank you very much. We think that if we give our hands, we must believe that we will win.

Ms. Nam, please.

Ms. Nam: I’m Nam in Boston. Good evening, Mrs. Hien. Good evening, everyone and all...

Mrs. Ngo Thi Hien:

Ms. Nam, turn off the radio please!

Ms. Nam: I think that Dai Chung newspaper did that one purpose. It means that they have a strong support. That’s why they have done it. If we sue them, will we win? What if they have a huge financial support from a nation? They could prove black is white. We still don’t know their real ability. What Mrs. Hien has done is right. But when black is proven to be white, it will be clear who gave that amount to them. They are against the radio station, meaning that they are against all Vietnamese nationals, but not only Mrs. Hien, Mr.Ngo Ngoc Hung or anyone working at the station. That’s all I have to say.

Mrs. Ngo Thi Hien: Thank you Ms. Nam. Ladies and gentlemen, honestly the comments sent to us are right. We believe that we have to contend with a force, which is stronger than us. We have lost our country. If we want to get it back, we must have resistance. Do not think that we can lose, just let it be. We will try and we promise you that if you agree and support us, we will bring glorious victory to stamp out the old shame. If we let them win, not only will this committee of religion be wiped out but also hundreds of other people. Then what will be our nationals’ voice? Next will be Mr. Minh.

Mrs. Ngo Thi Hien: My name is Minh. Good evening Mrs. Ngo Thi Hien. I have been with the station for quite a long time and I know that you have made a great contribution. I would like to make a suggestion about bringing an action against Dai Chung newspaper. I think you shouldn’t do that because what we did is for justice and Dai Chung newspaper is the unfounded saboteur, supported by the domestic Communists.

Mrs. Ngo Thi Hien: Mr. Minh, pardon me for interrupting you here. Do you think we should surrender or defeat communism? In Vietnam, we can surrender to communism because there is no law but the law of the jungle, but here we need money. I don’t think it will become the second O.J. Simpson. We don’t think so. O.J. Simpson has been supported by those who have the same color skin as them. But here, we must know that we are Vietnamese nationals. Communism was lucky or indebted to some miscreants who took over our Vietnam. But someday we must defeat them. We must defeat them completely. In the meantime we say that we will lose, then, if we don’t take action, when we could get our country back.

Mr. Banh: Good evening, Mrs. Hien, Ms. Hoang Lan and the audience of the Vietnamese Public Radio. I’m Banh, from Maryland State. Dai Chung newspaper, criticizing the donation of relief and sabotaging the Radio of Free Vietnamese behind the radio station’s back has barred our voice and our jobs. I have told Mr. Hoai Thanh’s Dai Chung newspaper that this is an application of the law of the jungle like the Viet Cong did. Many people complained that Mrs. Hien is so gentle in her character as her name [Hien means "Gentle" in Vietnamese]. What a pity that you are so courteous. If I were you, they could not get out of my house. After their being knocked out in my house, I would have police pull their body out. And this sabotage is to stifle our voice and bar out relief fund in the future. From this, our fellow-citizens can see the purpose of Dai Chung newspaper. I think the fellow countrymen and the audiences will support the words of anti-communists. And Ms. Hien should help our fellow citizens to fight for our future and for our unhappy people in Vietnam. We should do something and Dai Chung Newspaper’s reporters should do something for our unhappy Vietnamese in the home land. We have seen clearly what Dai Chung Newspaper has done. That’s all.

Mrs. Ngo Thi Hien: Thank you Mr. Banh very much. Thank you to all of you who want to express your comments. But it is getting late now. We really appreciate those who called in to convey their accurate opinions and comments. Though some of you thought that they were so strong while we are weak, we should not bring them to court. We will leave this for you to comment. We are in a weak position, so we must do something to improve our position...so that we can win, do you agree? We have here some of you who can support, but those who still have other issues to be concerned about, please spiritually support us. To that extent we feel happy to continue our job in the future. See you again. Once again, the address of the Vietnam Committee of Free Religion is: P.O Box 342111. MD 20827. Thank you very much.

...it was so shameless to bang his fist on the table and ask for the records. When we wrote a press release requesting you not to get close to our house, you responded by writing an article with the title "Madam President of the Vietnam Committee of Free Religion needs to study American laws". At that time, you adduced a law. Since we are not aware of the legislation system, we had to consult with some attorneys. It seems that none of them know about your so called [...] law. We found that you are so aware of laws. So we had to ask our attorney to bring actions against you and request the court order you not to come near our house and office. We hope that you have a chance to talk to the judge about your [Sunshine?] law.

Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Hoai Thanh forgot his law book at home, so as soon as he got into the court, he asked the attorney to inform us that he had surrendered and would comply with our requirements and never come to our office.

Ladies and Gentlemen, let me raise a question: Is there anything worthy of complaint in a case of having got what was wanted without spending a minute in court? Our attorney still hadn’t agreed while Mr. Hoai Thanh had stated conditions. Do you know what were the conditions? They were that the Committee of Free Religion has to promise not to broadcast on air that he lost this time. Yes, you did not hear by mistake. Mr. Thanh surrendered and promised likely not to come to our house and office with the condition that we have to keep this case confidential and not to talk on the radio so that people can know that he surrendered.

UF5: Mrs. Hien, you have talked about Mr. Hoai Thanh so far. I was wondering when you saw Mr. Hoai Thanh, were you afraid?

Mrs. Ngo Thi Hien: My impression was that he came here without an appointment. My house is located in a relatively large area. The distance between houses is wide, so an appointment needs to be arranged. Only the postman or a ticket deliveryman do not need appointments. So the image of him giving me a pile of documents and banging on my table to ask me to give him this and that makes us feel scared everytime the doorbell is rung. This morning when we met him at court, we did not dare to look at him. This fear can be compared to Nam Anh’s fear of a caterpillar or a snake. For example, we are scared of being bitten by a tiger, but a tiger is bigger and stronger than us, we must say. In case we find that a caterpillar is so descpicable, but we are still scared of it and we don’t want to get close to it. That’s what I am really afraid of from now until the court date and when I see Mr. Hoai Thanh. This fear will never be forgotten for the rest of my life. So to answer Nam Anh’s question: I am really scared. But have you ever seen a caterpillar on your skin?

UF5: (Smile)

Operator:

3. Engaging in interstate or foreign travel in aid of racketeering activities in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1953. Routinely, the defendants traveled between Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia, as well as other states and overseas in pursuit of their racketeering activities.

53. The acts form a "pattern" of racketeering activity. These acts have been related in their common objectives of defrauding the Vietnamese language community in America with false representations about soliciting money, public relations exposure and other things of value in order to help free Vietnam and fight communism, establish free religion in Vietnam and other laudable goals which the defendants use to further their domination of such efforts and the Vietnamese language media to shut out those such as the plaintiffs who really do do something about these issues and in "hurting" through threats and intimidations any who question the defendants and their use of proceeds while "lulling" the Vietnamese language community into believing that the defendants can account for their use of funds when they cannot do so. These acts have had the same or similar purposes, results, participants, victims, and methods of commission. The acts have been consistently repeated and show no sign of being discontinued and are capable of being repeated indefinitely.
54. Each defendant also conspired to violate 18 U.S.C. § 1962(c), the individual defendants all with each other, and the corporate defendants all with each other.
55. Plaintiff Hoai Thanh has been injured in his business and property, and in his health, emotional well-being and ability to work within his Vietnamese language community by the defendants’ violations of 18 U.S.C. § 1962 (c) and (d), his wife has been greatly harmed and intimidated, her emotional health so damaged that she has had to seek medical help, and his children have been affected. His businesses other than the plaintiff newspaper have been so severely damaged by the driving away of customers from the Vietnamese language community that he has had to sell his Maryland business and start over in Virginia with a business that is struggling to make it without customers from the Vietnamese language community. The plaintiff newspaper has had its advertisers from the Vietnamese business community intimidated and driven away and its growth reversed and circulation destroyed while its ability to publish has been virtually eliminated. The defendants have boasted of this on the air and stated that they will do so to anyone who dares to question their use of proceeds. In the absence of the defendants’ violations of 18 U.S.C. § 1964(c) and (d), none of this harm and damage would have occurred. Under the provisions of 18 U.S.C. 1964(c), plaintiffs are entitled to bring this action and to have immediate, temporary and permanent injunctive relief, and to recover treble damages, all the costs of bringing this suit, and reasonable attorney fees.

(Federal Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act - Investment of Proceeds of Racketeering Activity)

56. Plaintiffs restate and incorporate all the preceding paragraphs of this complaint.
57. This claim for relief is asserted against each of the defendants, and arises under 18 U.S.C. § 1962 (a) and (d) of RICO.
58. At all relevant times, each defendant was a "person" within the meaning of 18 U.S.C. § 1961, as each defendant was capable of "holding a legal or beneficial interest in property."
59. At all relevant times, the defendants have constituted an associated-in-fact "enterprise" within the meaning of 18 U.S.C. § 1961(4), or, in the alternative, each defendant has constituted such an enterprise. Each enterprise and its activities have an effect on interstate commerce, in that the enterprise is engaged in broadcasting and transmitting commercially subscribed to programs, supported by advertising and subscriptions, in interstate commerce, and in obtaining funds from listeners in interstate commerce and in competing in interstate Vietnamese language media markets for the purpose of dominating such markets and "hurting" through the use of interstate commerce any who question the defendants’ fundraising or drive for such market dominance.
60. Defendants have engaged in a pattern of racketeering activity which dates from 1999 through the present and is ongoing and threatens to continue indefinitely into the future. Defendants multiple acts of racketeering are set out in Count I above. These racketeering acts generated income for the defendants from the funds raised through their fraudulent and deceptive false representations and omissions and from their threats and actions that "hurt" those who tried to question their activities so as to enable them to compete illegally against those such as the plaintiffs, including starting a newspaper directly competitive with the plaintiff newspaper and taking away its advertisers.
61. Defendants have used or invested their illicit proceeds, generated through the pattern of racketeering activity, directly or indirectly, in the acquisition of an interest in, or the establishment or operation of, each enterprise in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1962(a). Defendants’ use and investment of these illicit proceeds in each enterprise is for the specific purpose of obtaining further funds through their fraudulent misrepresentations and omissions in interstate commerce through wire and transmission and gaining additional funds through the mail and for "hurting" through an interstate campaign and their travel interstate, with threats and intimidation, those such as the plaintiffs who question their use of their funds that they raise and solicit in the broadcasts.
62. Each defendant also conspired to violate 18 U.S.C. § 1962(a) in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1962(d), the individual defendants among themselves and the corporate defendants among themselves.
63. Plaintiff Hoai Thanh has been injured in his business and property, and in his health, emotional well-being and ability to work within his Vietnamese language community by the defendants’ violations of 18 U.S.C. § 1962 (c) and (d), his wife has been greatly harmed and intimidated, her emotional health so damaged that she has had to seek medical help, and his children have been affected. His businesses other than the plaintiff newspaper have been so severely damaged by the driving away of customers from the Vietnamese language community that he has had to sell his Maryland business and start over in Virginia with a business that is struggling to make it without customers from the Vietnamese language community. The plaintiff newspaper has had its advertisers from the Vietnamese business community intimidated and driven away and its growth reversed and circulation destroyed while its ability to publish has been virtually eliminated. The defendants have boasted of this on the air and stated that they will do so to anyone who dares to question their use of proceeds. In the absence of the defendants’ violations of 18 U.S.C. § 1964(c) and (d), none of this harm and damage would have occurred. Under the provisions of 18 U.S.C. 1964(c), plaintiffs are entitled to bring this action and to have immediate, temporary and permanent injunctive relief, and to recover treble damages, all the costs of bringing this suit, and reasonable attorney fees.

1. That the plaintiff Hoai Thanh did not own a valuable Sunoco gas station franchise which he did in fact own on Pennsylvania Avenue Southeast in the District of Columbia, but was merely a "manager" for Sunoco.
2. That the plaintiff Hoai Thanh deceived one "Mr. Thanh" (Thanh Van Vo) about the plaintiff Hoai Thanh’s ownership of this valuable gas station franchise.
3. That Mr. Thanh Van Vo was a "victim" of Mr. Hoai Thanh when in fact the opposite was the case.
4. That Mr. Thanh Van Vo bought the gas station from Mr. Hoai Thanh for "$70,000.00" when such was not the case. Mr. Thanh did not legitimately buy the gas station for any amount of money, did not have "$70,000", but was instead an extortionate con artist, part of a would be Vietnamese "mafia," that attempted to use the gas stations own income to illegally take over the gas station accompanied by threats of violence, including murder and physical harm to the family of Mr. Hoai.
5. That Thanh Van Vo personally "invested hundred thousand of dollars" in the gas station and built many improvements with such funds. Thanh never invested any of "his" funds in the gas station, but only illegally took funds from the revenues of Mr. Hoai’s Sunoco franchise after he illegally took it over and used those funds to operate a business that was not his and that he had not any legal ownership of. Thanh Van Vo did not make improvements but he did operate businesses out of the gas station in violation of the franchise agreement.
6. That Thanh Van Vo brought the Sunoco gas station franchise business, in contrast to its operation by the present plaintiff Hoai Thanh, to a "prosperity." In fact Thanh Van Vo knew nothing about, and had no experience in operating, a gas station whereas Hoai Thanh, the present plaintiff, had successfully operated and supervised many stations as a manager within major oil companies, including Sunoco, and had successfully operated other major oil company franchises. Thanh Van Vo, by contrast, didn’t even know, when he illegally intruded into the franchise, how to change oil, and knew nothing about auto mechanics. He repeatedly bounced checks, he attempted to rape an employee, allowed his employees, who were inexperienced in the business and were menacing, violence prone young men, to joy ride customer’s cars and he failed to give decent service up to the standards of the trade.
7. That Hoai Thanh, the present plaintiff, was a "conner" in the sense of a criminal "con artist" and untruthful and deceiving person when in fact he was not and Thanh Van Vo was. Thanh Van Vo was bluffing and deceiving about everything connected with his past, his purported skills and experience, his business background, and his finances, and was part of a group that was engaged in a conspiracy of "bluffing," lying and deceiving.
8. That Hoai Thanh, as a result of business arrangements that he had with one Khuong, "dispersed his property and filed bankruptcy." This is false and a misrepresentation.
9. That Hoai Thanh, the present plaintiff, committed "crime" in his dealings with Khuong.
10. That Hoai Thanh was able to prevail in a number of lawsuits stemming from business relationships only by "cheating and deceiving." In fact Hoai prevailed in court on the merit of his case in each instance where he prevailed.
11. That Hoai Thanh only prevailed in the cases where he prevailed because of trickery and of lawyers he hired who went along with his deceit and trickery and enabled it and whom he paid a lot of money which he tricked out of people by illegal means. In fact there were no tricks, the cases were won because Hoai was honest and not "tricky," and the lawyers were not paid very much for the amount of work that they did and were not paid with any money except money that was honestly earned and come by.
12. That a woman, Mrs. Minh, had loaned $100,000.00 to Hoai Thanh without a receipt and had never been repaid because Hoai Thanh had tricked and cheated her. In reality Mrs. Minh had invested in a business with Hoai Thanh and she purported to invest $60,000.00 not $100,000.00 and at that one check of the amount she purported to invest, for $10,000.00, was returned for insufficient funds and never made good. In addition she received in payments, $34,880.35, for which Hoai Thanh has the returned checks, and also received back valuable inventory and other items. Hoai Thanh has the signed document in which Mrs. Minh acknowledges repayment of her investment over and above money received in the form of "tools, equipment, supplies, inventory and office furniture," and releases Hoai Thanh from any further obligation. To the release is attached a list of the inventory received by Mrs. Minh. It alone shows a value of $43,230.00. In short Mrs. Minh got back what she invested and more and acknowledged the same, despite the fact that the business venture ultimately failed.
13. In connection with this episode the broadcast claims that Mrs. Minh went to Hoai Thanh’s home to get furniture to pay back part of her "loan" and Hoai Thanh called the police on her for trespassing. This never happened. Hoai Thanh never called the police and Mrs. Minh did in fact take a good bit of furniture from Hoai Thanh’s home, getting even more back on her investment. To represent that she was a "victim" as the broadcast does, who "lost $100,000.00," is untrue and a misrepresentation.

72. These examples and others are used in this and the other, like, broadcasts, to supposedly illustrate that the plaintiff Hoai Thanh is a "crook" and a "big liar," who "deceive[s]" the "VN refugees…"

73) These assertions are false and misrepresentative of the truth, and known by the defendants to be so when they direct and publish them. The purported examples are false and known by the defendants who direct and publish them to be so. They constitute a willful campaign to misrepresent the truth about and harm the life of the plaintiff Hoai Thanh and to discredit and place in a false light both plaintiffs.

74) In these programs also the defendants had the host defendants indicate that Hoai was a "communist." By this they meant, within the context of the Vietnamese exile and expatriate community in the U.S., not that Hoai was a philosophical believer in the theory of communism but that he was an active collaborator with the dictatorial communist regime that rules Vietnam and against which we and the South Vietnamese fought. This also is false and known to the defendants to be false and is used by the defendants to place the plaintiffs in a false light.

75) This is a serious misrepresentation and is completely false. In fact plaintiff Hoai fought against the communists in the armed forces of the late lamented Republic of South Vietnam and has remained active in working against communism in this country and against the dictatorial communist regime that now rules Vietnam. There is no greater slander or disparagement in the Vietnamese ethnic community in this country than this accusation.

76) The defendants not only perpetrated these false representations about the plaintiff Hoai and his newspaper, but also actively condoned and enabled "callers in" to their programs from all over the U.S. Vietnamese speaking community in multiple states to embellish and amplify these false representations, calling plaintiff Hoai a "communist" and even threatening violence against plaintiff Hoai, such as killing him, or wishing in public utterances on the program that someone would do the plaintiff Hoai harm and violence. Defendants did his repeatedly on every show.

77) These repeated publications of false statements and misrepresentations over a period of years were intended to place the plaintiffs in a false light before the ethnically Vietnamese and Vietnamese-speaking community in the United States and did so, holding out the plaintiff Hoai, and, as a consequence, his newspaper and the writings under his pen name as to be despised based on a completely false picture and representation.

78) Defendants did these acts and made these misrepresentations to place plaintiffs in a false light with malice aforethought, maliciously, wantonly, recklessly, intentionally with complete disregard for the rights of the plaintiffs and did so in order to destroy, displace and replace the plaintiff newspaper and destroy financially the plaintiff Hoai in all his business, when combined with the pattern of racketeering activity engaged in by the defendants, and to destroy the reputation and viability of plaintiff Hoai’s pen name.

79) They acted in this way and engaged in this illegal behavior in order to discourage the plaintiffs from exercising their First Amendment Freedom to investigate and report on the defendants and their activities and to prevent the plaintiff newspaper and the plaintiff Hoai as its owner and publisher from existing and publishing in competition and rivalry with the newspaper which the defendants started to displace and replace the plaintiff newspaper.

80) In so doing the defendants, jointly and severally, caused great financial harm to the plaintiffs, caused great emotional suffering to the plaintiff Hoai, destroyed and are destroying his businesses, both his newspaper and his other businesses and have made clear their intent to keep on damaging and harming the plaintiffs unless and until they are stopped.

WHEREFORE, plaintiffs pray, jointly and severally, for compensatory damages in the amount of one million dollars ($1,000,000.00) and punitive damages in the amount of five million dollars ($10,000,000.00), for temporary and permanent injunctions to prohibit the defendants from ever again invading the privacy of the plaintiff Hoai in order to cast him a false light, from engaging in further misrepresentations about the defendants and ro such other relief as to the Court shall seem just and meet in law or equity and to order them to publish corrective statements accurately representing the plaintiffs and the falsehood of their misrepresentations and acknowledging that falsehood to the same Vietnamese public to whom they addressed their efforts to place the plaintiffs in a false light over a period of three months and, the plaintiffs also pray, because of the particularly egregious and outrageous nature of the defendants conduct, and the viciousness and wantonness of their malice as exhibited by it, that the plaintiffs be awarded all of their costs, including reasonable counsel fees.

COUNT IV: CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT "FALSE LIGHT"

81. Plaintiffs restate and incorporate all the preceding paragraphs of this complaint.
82. The individual defendants, and all of them, conspired together as set out in the previous counts in order to perpetrate the tort of false lights by which the plaintiffs were cast in a false light before the Vietnamese language public by the misrepresentations and falsehoods alleged.

WHEREFORE, plaintiffs pray, jointly and severally, for compensatory damages in the amount of one million dollars ($1,000,000.00) and punitive damages in the amount of five million dollars ($10,000,000.00), for temporary and permanent injunctions to prohibit the defendants from ever again invading the privacy of the plaintiff Hoai in order to cast him a false light, from engaging in further misrepresentations about the defendants and ro such other relief as to the Court shall seem just and meet in law or equity and to order them to publish corrective statements accurately representing the plaintiffs and the falsehood of their misrepresentations and acknowledging that falsehood to the same Vietnamese public to whom they addressed their efforts to place the plaintiffs in a false light over a period of three months and, the plaintiffs also pray, because of the particularly egregious and outrageous nature of the defendants conduct, and the viciousness and wantonness of their malice as exhibited by it, that the plaintiffs be awarded all of their costs, including reasonable counsel fees against all of the individual plaintiffs, jointly and severally.

COUNT V: DEFAMATION

83. Plaintiffs restate and incorporate all the preceding paragraphs of this complaint.
84. Plaintiff Hoai Thanh resides in Northern Virginia, in the Washington D.C. Metropolitan area and did so at all times pertinent hereto. At the relevant times in this complaint to its counts above he operated an auto business in suburban Maryland at the address given above for the plaintiff Dai Chung Bi-weekly Newspaper, of which he is president and publisher, a business which he was compelled to sell because of the harm done to it by the defendants in the actions complained of herein.
85. The plaintiff Dai Chung Bi-weekly Newspaper at all relevant times operated out of offices in Suburban Maryland at the above address.
86. The defendant Committee for Religious Freedom in Vietnam (CRFV) was a corporation incorporated in Maryland which operated out of headquarters in Maryland at the address given in the style of this complaint above.
87. The defendant Hien Thi Ngo resided in suburban Maryland at the above address at all relevant times and still resides there. She operates out of the address of CRFV which she heads as president and principal.
88. All the other defendants reside and operate in the Washington, D.C. metro area and did so at all relevant times, some also in Maryland.
89. The campaign of false light and the pattern of racketeering activity focused on the plaintiffs in broadcasts by the defendant CRFV over the system of the defendant VPR under the direction of the defendants in their associated-in-fact enterprise originating in the D.C. metro area and reaching an audience of over a million in this D.C. area and many other states.
90. It was focused particularly in Maryland because it was coordinated there with the defendants’ campaign of malicious prosecution against the defendants, the details of which are set out and alleged in Count VII below, and it was those maliciously prosecuted law suits in the Montgomery County, Maryland, Circuit Court that were the recipient, ultimately, of a substantial portion of the funds that the defendants raised by their fraudulent representations over intestate wire and airwaves and received by wire nd mail and where much of their interstate travel and transportation was involved along with their use of proceeds to fund interstate operations to harm the plaintiffs there and destroy them and their business.
91. The particularly publishing of defamatory material against and concerning the plaintiffs complained of in this count, one of many that have gone on for years and threaten to continue into the future, took place in a broadcast by CRFV over the VPR system on September 2, 2004. The broadcast was one of many similar broadcasts, which the defendants have made over a span of more than three years, since they began a systematic campaign of defamation against the plaintiffs. They repeated this broadcast again or or about December 23, 2004 and again during the Christmas holiday season of 2004.
92. Defendants, on that September 2, 2004 date, maliciously published over the defendant Vietnamese Public Radio system, under the sponsorship of the defendant CRFV and under the direction and planning of their associated-in-fact enterprise, reaching an audience in many states of approximately one million people who speak and understand and are conversant in the Vietnamese language, the following words concerning the plaintiff Hoai Thanh in the original Vietnamese, which they then repeated on or about December 23, 2004:

Ðúng là con người co số phải khơng ơng?

Biết bao lần người ta thưa ơng về lường gạt, giựt nợ v.v..mà hình như vụ nào ơng cũng thốt.

Và sau đây là lá thư gởi ơng Hoai Thanh:

là viết được một bài và nhất là theo văn phong của Vân Nam.

Ðọc loạt bài "Quần chúng muốn biết..." của Vân Nam (mà ơng HT luơn nở mũi, ưỡn ngực nhận mình là tác giả) ai cũng thấy đây là văn phong của một "du sinh" Hà Nội.

Hoai Thanh hùng hổ co hai người (của HT) về VN đến gặp TT Thích Khơng Tánh và được Thương Tọa cho biết Bà Hiền khơng hề gởi 15,800 đơla cứu lụt cho GHPGVNTN.

Tơi viết những dong chữ này khơng với tư cách một nạn nhân của HT. Sự thiệt hại của tơi quá nhỏ so với những nạn nhân khác của ơng ta. Nhưng thấy ơng Hoai Thanh thường tưởng mọi người như con nít noi nhăng cuội gì cũng co người tin nên tơi đành tốn chút thì giờ, mở mắt cho HT làm phước.

Cái mặt mốc HT trơ trẽn lắm. Ðể quí vị xem, noi vậy mà thằng chả chưa chịu câm miệng đâu. Nhưng thơi khơng sao, coi như cái nghiệp. Cứ "du-sinh-Vân-Nam" mà viết ngu, thì mổ tơi cứ đè đầu HT ra tế (HT muốn vậy mà).

Lê Tâm

Thưa ơng Hoai Thanh,

Ðừng bỏ cơ hội ngàn vàng này, uổng lắm, ơng HT ơi.

Lê Tâm

93. These broadcasts on VPR by the defendants were willful and malicious and done with the intent to injure plaintiff Hoai Thanh and to expose Hoai Thanh to hatred within the Vietnamese audience and community, and to expose Hoai Thanh to ridicule, contempt, scorn and obloquy, and to cause Hoai Thanh to be shunned and avoided and to injure his standing and that of the plaintiff newspaper in the Vietnamese audience and community, to injure him in his profession as a publisher and author and as a businessman. Such words and the depiction they gave were intended to mean and did mean and were understand by the listeners in Vietnamese to the program as follows when translated into English:

ARTICLE REQUESTED TO BE PUBLISHED WITH PAYMENT BY LE MINH NGOC

TO: Le Phai Weekly Newspaper.

Dear Sir,

In the 98^th issue of Dai Chung Magazine, Mr. Van Nam cited my name - Le Minh Ngoc-and blamed me for sending an anonymous letter. While the letter written by myself was sent directly to Dai Chung Magazine to be pubshied, therefore it could not be charged as anonymous as Mr. H.T. proclaimed in the Spring Magazine Issue. I was myself completely independent to write this article with a desire to support you. Mr. Hoai Thanh, to "purify" the community as you proclaimed in the Spring Issue. Mr. Editor of Le Phai! Could you please make any necessary correction in order to clarify the content of the article which Mr. Hoai Thanh had concluded as anonymous. That may cause suspicion in the public and readers who easily accuse the writer and the others.

I, the undersigned Le Minh Ngoc requested the favor from Le Phai Newspaper to public two letters that had been sent to Dai Chung Magazine previously in the section of "Pay Advertisement" .

Le Minh Ngoc (Email of LMN sent to Le Phai on May 25/02

Mr. Editor in Chief for "Le Phai Newspaper":

Yesterday, I sent an article and requested it to be posted on your newspaper with payment but I forgot to ask about the cost to sent you a check. Could you please tell me how much is the fee that I pay for.

Thank you and wish you safe and happy always.

Sincerely yours,

Le Minh Ngoc

Mr. Hoai Thanh

Chief Editor of Dai Chung Magazine

Dear Sir:

First, I would like to introduce myself as Le Minh Ngoc, a faithful reader of your magazine Website. May I express my admiration for your concern and work to clear all the conflicts among the Vietnamese Community as you wrote in the magazine. If the journalist circle had many people like you, the VN community would have been a lot better.

Some of your articles criticizing fiercely the Freedom Religion Committee and the VN Overseas Radio that I have read, have been brought to court and the result will be turned out clearly either black or white.

According to me, you would rather not wast paper and ink to argue with them. The court will justify the facts as you have thought about. For the time being, our fellow countrymen eagerly request you to publish the letter and featuring the crook who used to deceive the VN refugees that wholeheartedly trust him as a good compatriot.

This big liar lives not far away, just around your neighborhood. His unique characteristic is boasting himself as a penholder and never holds hammers, wrenches and screwdrivers, etc...He like to use big words and talks irrelevently, shamelessly and unconsistantly like we turn up and down our hand.

The following people are his victims:

The first one was Mrs. Minh, the owner of a hair cuttery shop in Arlington, VA. who considered him as a closed good acquaintance and let him borrow $100,000.00 without requesting him to write a receipt. When Mrs. Minh claimed back her money, this dishonest guy said he lost in the business and asked her to come to his house to take all furniture and household facilities instead. Mrs. Minh, a born honest and generous woman accepted his proposal to set off part of the debt by taking things from his home. But on the day she came to the house, the debter had evacuated all his valuable items that she already knew he had possessed them previously. She got very angry and could not help cursing him in loud voice. Taking advantage of knowing the american law, he called the police and charged her of illegal invading his house and denied his inviting her to come in. Mrs. Minh with her frank nature but reacting illegally had lost $100,000.00 and was detained one day at police station. That was the story, Mr. Hoai Thanh. Guess if anyone dared to trust him, Mr. Hoai Thanh? When this bad guy always said he wanted to purify the community!.

The second victim was Mr. Le Cong Thien, a builder in Virginia who lost $30,000.00 resulting from his Vietnamese born-possessed characteristic of money transaction hands on hands, without writing any receipt, they verbally trusted each other. Therefore Mr. Le Cong Thien had paid $30,000.00 for this live experience. And the price was much cheaper than that of Mrs. Minh, was it right, Mr. Hoai Thanh?

The third victim was Mr. Thanh, who was the owner of a hot dog van in Washington DC.. Mr. Thanh bought a gas station from him and paid $70,000.00. But it turned out that the gas station was not his own property but it belonged to Sunoco. He was only hired by Sunoco as a manager. In the transaction with Mr. Thanh Hot Dog, he convinced him that a hand writing deed was enough; had it publicly notorized was only one time consuming and money wasting. Beside paying $70,000.00 to this bluffing fellow countrymen, Mr. Thanh Hot Dog also invested hundred thousand of dollars to expand the services such as adding tire change section, and building soda and candy stand etc... When the business came to its full swing, Mr. Thanh Hot Dog was evicted by the police because this gas station has not been completely his own property. One important thing that Mr. Thanh Hot Dog learn by this time was that whoever managed this gas station was only a manager, but not owner. All kind of agreed transaction must be filed at the central office for being verified to be legalized. Mr. Thanh Hot Dog did not know that process except his big bluffer who played very well his role as a good VN compatriot. Awaking from the bad dream, what Mr. Thanh Hot Dog had to do was sueing him at court to claim back part of his losses..

The fourth victim was Mr. Khuong, the owner of My An Fabrics. He is a very talented businessman with very many experiences in business field but when coming up with this Big bluffer, he also mistook him as a honest man because he always talked about offering charitable services and cpmpassion toward his fellow countryman, Mr. Hoai Thanh! When this bluffer insisted Mr. Khuong to loan him $10,000.00 the latter agreed but carefully insisted him to write a receipt. Even though Mr. Khuong could not get out of his deceptive practice. Being familiar with cheating, he did not pay Mr. Khuong the debt.

Mr. Khuong was very rich. To him ten thousand dollars meant nothing but he determined not to give him a cent and tried to bring him to the court.

What do you know, Mr. Hoai Thanh? He was very cunning, he used money cheated from his fellow countrymen to hire three talented American lawyers to defend for his crime. Under the light of American law, this cunning, shameless big bluffer armed with myriad of plots and tricks hoped to win this case. He will manipulate newspapers and makes Mr. Khuong loose face and at the same time created the credit for himself to easily continue his cheating the refugees. At the court he cunningly delared that Mr. Khuong pooled his capital as a joint venture to do the business. The business was going down and he was not responsible to refund that ten thousand dollars but the receipt of the loan was the blatant proof, he could not cheat like the previous cases. The judge had ordered him to reimburse Mr. Khuong the loan amount plus interest. Not being able to avoid the crime, he dispersed his property and filed bankruptcy to wipe out the loan. But in this case, Mr. Khuong was more high handed therefore he sorrily had to pay him back the amount of money.

In short, among numerous victims, he was only defeated by Mr. Khuong but victorious over the others by means of cheating and deceiving to collect the other’s money in the title of loan or joint venture.

Sir the list of victims is still long, I will continue to write in the next issue in order to get the investigation ending fast and satisfied result. Mr. Hoai Thanh should meet your fellow countrymen listed below. They are readily availiable to provide you the details regarding the cheatings and bluffings mentioned above and the name and background of this villainous bluffer:

Bach Tuyet Jewelry, Kim Long Jewelry, Mr. Hoang Nuoi Restaurant QueenBee, Mr. Khuong VA. Fabrics shop, Mr. Thanh Hot Dog in Washington D.C., Mr. Le Cong Thien VA., Mrs. Minh Hair Cuttery in Arlington VA., Dai Nam Restaurant, Mr. Mekong and businessmen in the Wilson/Clarendon areas.

Mr. Hoai Thanh, I always remember your wholehearted saying appearing on the Nham Ngo Spring Magazine: "In compassion with the compatriots and with desire to build up strong community..." therefore I believe, with your wisdom, you would definitely expose this crook to light. I eagerly request you to publish this letter on Dai Chung Magazine to let the people know all kind of cheatings and deceiving to spare them from being a victim. Also through reading your magazine, our people will provide you more information and events for publishing as hot news to the public. That seems to match with your words. I sincerely wish you always safe and successful.

Good bye,

Le Minh Ngoc

To: Dai Chung Magazine and Mr. Hoai Thanh ( Editor and Senior writer), how many times did you sneak in and out?

I did not intend to write any more, because Le Minh Ngoc has shown the photo of the big con artist to the public. But today, Hoai Thanh and Dai Chung Magazine "sneak in and out " on the Thao Luan Magazine three times in a row of five days simply to talk about the article "Dai Chung Magazine sued by the Religion Freedom Committee". I find myself not being able to be silent any more and I want to present some ideas as follows:

Not only in Vietnam do the calumnies exist as "Priest Nguyen Van Ly has a wife and ten children" or "Minister Nguyen Hong Quang seduces a teenager"; but in the USA also, are there many people who speak out without any proofs.

Though Hoai Thanh is illiterate (everyone who has met him has known that) but very crooked (all Hoai Thanh’ s victims agreed on this). Hoai Thanh knows how to criticize very well. Even though "this credit" does not surely belong to him but it likely belongs to "an invisible big boss" who paid for. Truly, a series of articles "The Public wants to know" as I guess, were written by "an overseas student" (using the term of Socialism). Everybody knows that Hoai Thanh does not have enough ability to write, even a bad essay. If Mr. Hoai Thanh wants to deny this weakness, I bet you sit in a closed room for two hours and a proctor gives you a subject, I guarantee you cannot complete three correct sentences, but not an article in the same style of Van Nam.

If Hoai Thanh accepts the challenge, I will invite three respectable seniors in the Washington metropolitan area to be proctors and the gentlemen in the editing staff act as examiners. If Hoai Thanh is able to write an article that is as good as that in " The public wants to know", I will lose $10.000 which will help Hoai Thanh to pay for the attorney fee in the law suit of the Religion Freedom Committee; and if Hoai Thanh cannot write, you will lose the bet and must hand over the same amount of money of $10.000 to the Community Representative Committee in the Washington area to spend on the public services.

Are you courageous enough to accept the bet. I hope to hear your answer soon on the newspaper.

Reading the series of articles "The public wants to know", of Van Nam (that made Mr. Hoai Thanh proud of, with your nose inflated, and chest thrown up to the front to claim that you are the author), everyone see this is the style of " the overseas student" from Hanoi.

Hoai Thanh has hired one Hanoi overseas student to take care of the "lay out on the web site". I do not know if this guy and Van Nam are two individuals or just one? But surely the series of articles " The public wants to know", of Van Nam always consisted of the special terms used in Hanoi Red such as the word " baøu chöûa" that was read in the recent essay. I always remember a sentence in a severe criticism that was like a splash of water to the face of the Religion Freedom Committee, and that the overseas student Van Nam used to spit out roughly as follows "the Vietnamese Communist government authorizes the newspapers to publish the news related to Nguyet Bieu, then Dai Chung Magazine will reproduce it publicly in the future", -(Being born in the suppressive regime of uncle Ho and the Communist Party, everything must be waited the permission, that is quite right!) -or the calumnious opinion against the spirit leaders in the country:" The relief fund for Flood reliefs accounted to millions of dollars from overseas did not reach to the hands of the flood victims, because this fund was robbed ,as said in the report, by Venerable Thanh Minh, -a nephew of Venerable Thich Quang Do -, but in reality, Venerable Thanh Minh has kept this fund to build the pagoda". The similar news as mentioned above was published on Dai Chung, the issue 75. I remember this number, as it is the same name of Pho 75).

If Mr. Hoai Thanh was a normal person, with good personality then surely all the people in the Washington area would believe him and boycott the Religion Freedom Committee and the Overseas VN Radio long time ago.

Although, at least Mr. Hoai Thanh is also successful with some who are naive and live far away and Read Dai Chung on the Website, if not understanding thoroughly, but simply thinking of "there is no smoke without fire". But to the wise and intellectual, they tend to look for the hidden causes. A newspaper denouncing the corruption and embezzlement of the relief fund for flood victims in an organization, normally needs only one or two commentaries with appropriate languages. That is enough; writing score of articles is not necessary. Mr. Hoai Thanh, in this case, found fault with and blamed them directly and indirectly in the way because he wanted to beat to death the Religion Freedom Committee and the Overseas VN Radio so that they do not have voices to stand against " the Big Boss" of his; not because he wants to be on the side of the people to purify community as he said.

"Purify the community" how sublime is the mission of Mr. Hoai Thanh! In the meantime why do you not clean your tiny body shop? Only the naiïve client like me gets into your business and was dissatisfied after involving in an argument with you everyday, why do you not clear it up? You forget an elementary lesson which teaches us to perfect ourselves before preaching to others?

You have robbed the salaries of so many apprentices, but now playing the role of a hero to interfere in and get angry against the relief fund raised by the community is blatantly shameless.

I know Mrs. Hien is not stupid. The money received and spent for the flood victims was so surely accounted with care that she dared sue Dai Chung and Hoai Thanh in the court. No criminal is so naïive to report to the police that he is hidding in this bush or hand over the files to Hoai Thanh’s attorney to collect the mistakes in order to be put into the jail if any sign of fraud or embezzlement have been found! Surely Mrs Hien is not such a stupid .It is yourself, a dump who think yourself malicious, being able to deceive the others, and proclaim to be the winner in the law suit in order to prove Mrs Hien "s wrongdoing and cheating.

Hoai Thanh on the chair of defendant has nothing to be victorious. Not being charged for calumny and slander, that must be your big happiness.

For the time being, people are waiting Hoai Thanh to bring Mrs. Hien to the court because she charged you as a liar, a slanderer and a culumnier… while you exposed the whole truth in dozen of articles on " Quan Chung". When you dare sue Mrs Hien to the court for the mentioned above crime or for any crime, then the public will praise Hoai Thanh as a hero, even if, the court does not set up the trial. Do you notice that the community favors you, Mr. Hoai Thanh! Just move forward and sue Mrs. Hien then the people admire your mossy face. Only that time is your real "victory". Try harder man!

Hoai Thanh proudly said he sent his two men back to Viet Nam to see Venerable Thich Khong Tanh and he was told that Mrs. Hien never sent $15.800 of the flood relief fund to the VN United Buddist Committee.

Hoai Thanh was boastering but idiot, Venerable Thich Khong Tanh and the whole VN United Buddist Committee were put under the surveillance of the police, therefore it was not easy for any member of this group to meet anyone except that person carried a permission or a mark of Hanoi. Even if they met each other, Venerable Thich Khong Tanh was not stupid as Hoai Thanh used to be, because in this era, meeting with an unknown, betrayal believer- is like to to say" hey Mr. Viet Cong and Mr. overseas Vietnamese, we challenged your order to receive $15.000 of the reliefs fund from Mrs. Hien to distribute to the flood victims"!

About the personality of the two individuals of Mr. Hoai Thanh, our ancestors have thought us " Birds of the feather flock together". Your friends talk, only dogs believe. You can falsifiy the documents and also convert from yes to no easily. If these two persons were honest they could publicly show their addresses and telephone numbers for people to make a survey. Why they had to hide behind Dai Chung Magazine in order that the overseas student Van Nam could check and report to Hanoi or to the VN Embassy in Washington! And probably this overseas student could answer in the place of you. I do not know if Ms. Kim Hue is a real or fake character. But I know exactly that Mr. Nguyen van Thang, (the father of lawyer Nguyen Thai). This Mr. " No Kia " is not as scoundrel as Hoai Thanh, but his personality is also mediocre. Mr. Nguyen Thai, Nguyen van Thang specialized in writing anonymous letters sometime ago, due to not having any relative supports, he collects the SSI, gets free meals (Guarantee this is 100% true), therefore only $100 can make him talk about everything, not limiting to the story of Venerable Thich Khong Tanh.

Not having a free meal but still have Hoai Thanh put his name on Dai Chung as the title Professor and Journalist. "Such an ectasy " makes the professor carry out every kind of orders!

Writing to this point, I feel pity to the lawyer Nguyen Thai (Mr. Thang"s son). This is the circumstance of " an owl father gives birth to an angel". Perhaps the lawyer resembles his mother, not taking any bad feature of the father. But I sincerely apologize to the lawyer, I do not know how to use the more accurate word for Mr. Thang, he was the most exploited by Hoai Thanh. Throw away the spear you will be a Buddha, Mr." No Kia "!

I am writing these lines of words not on behalf of the victim of Hoai Thanh. The disadvantage of mine is too small compare to the others. But Hoai Thanh thought that other people were children, who believed every thing he said, therefore I must spend time to help him open his eyes.

His mossy face is thick skin. Let’s see, that guy has not been subdued and shut up his mouth. But it is O.K I consider this as a fate. Keep using the name "Overseas Student Van Nam " to write stupid thing then I crush his head for the celebration (Hoai Thanh wants this action).

I will lose a little time, but nothing else to lose more, I also did not involve in helping flood or storm victims, therefore I am not afraid to be charged for taking money from the fellow countryman!

Also not afraid of being sued, I only tell the truth, with available proofs, how come Hoai Thanh be able to let his victims go to the court as witness, moreover nothing to be sure that Hoai Thanh still has enough money to follow the law suit, except he is successful in new cheats; because the litigations of the Religion Freedom Commitee certainly made him like a boat staggering in a rough sea. It ‘s a pity!

Mr. Hoai Thanh: the plagiarist "Overseas student- Van Nam"

Dear Mr. Hoai Thanh,

"We" read the words "Your group" of "our"* that made my eyes dazzled with glares: after the land reform in 1954, this is the first time "we"* read this literature style in overseas. Thank you, Uncle and Party*, for having "overseas student Van Nam" "exported language labor."

The story "Con Artist" has had Mr. Le Minh Ngoc to deal with you. I only suggest to you some trifling things as follows:

You think that I do not deserve to challenge Van Nam and Hoai Thanh. Challenging to test the ability of writing and cheating as you are; it is true that I am not deserving. I do not hold the position of an editor and "senior pincers and hammer handling"*; therefore, I dare not boast. But you must see my good will is to look for ways to make money for you. Mr. Hoai Thanh, you only need to sit in a glass room for two hours (to guarantee no one prompt you and pass the ready made text or email the article to you) to write an essay given by a board of examiners. The writing need not be necessarily outstanding; the style should be of the same caliber as Van Nam’s, aiming at eliminating fraudulent and exterminating brutality (but supporting the scoundrel), and that is enough. You will receive US $10,000. That means $5000 per hour of work. You see, there is no other writer who can earn such high income.

Compare this to your auto body career-to gain a few hundred dollars, you must perspire plus the customer’s complaint about a job not well done and the request for a refund instead of thanks. Life is so treacherous, isn’t it?

If you get angry with me, just go ahead, but I advise you to accept the bet. $10,000 is not a small amount of money. Do you remember when Mr. Khuong, the owner of My An Fabrics, sued you in court for $10,000? You paid a lot of money to the lawyer but at the least you had to refund to Mr. Khuong the total of US $30,000 including interest. No one can earn this amount easily. Besides, you could demonstrate that you are the real writer and cause shame to those who undermined you as a pincers and hammer holder but not a writer. This group dare not curse you with bad language.

Do not let this golden opportunity pass you by-that would be very wasteful, Mr. Hoai Thanh!

Did you know that recently a rumor has been saying that you are "degrading" substantially? Your magazine publishes only once every one or two months because of money shortage, due to your involvement in investigating the relief fund for the flood victims of the Religion Freedom Committee. Previously, every fortnight you wrote one or two criticisms but recently maybe for a year, no one has seen any of your compositions.

And all of a sudden you proclaimed you won in a few sentences in a soft style, and not as ardent as before, that people called you a scabious dog that was wagging its tail and groaning for a while before dying!

Or you lost the case and you lied about being a winner, Man! If you had won, an expert writer like you, you should write more, and curse Mrs. Hien and Mr. Hung so that they have to move to another state. Similar to the time when you lived in Oklahoma, you filed bankruptcy and moved to California and from California to Virginia to "stir up" until now. You only talk irrelevantly and vaguely-how boring it is! Therefore, some bad-mouthed guys spread noisily that your loss was so serious that you had to sell the piece of land and the body shop in Maryland and move to Alexandria to treat the "injury," then continue to "stir" again.

I wish you would earn enough money soon in order to publish the next issue. Reader Le Tam is waiting to read the composition of Van Nam and to see the firm characteristic of the "leader" of Dai Chung.

One more story, this morning I surfed the website of Dai Chung to search for inspiration, but I do not know why you did not place 9 issues (from #124 to #133) on the website.

Is it because in these issues there are essays of your ancestor teacher Dang Van Nham who cursed and slandered the Venerables in the United Buddhism Religion? After the bad-mouthed criticism, you felt cold and stopped? Or you are going to ask something from the Venerables, so you hide these writings in order to be successful in your request.

Hey, Mr. Van Nam, go ahead and write for Mr. Hoai Thanh! Write in as brutal a style as in the story of robbery, rape, or rats getting into the "sewer," etc. …the better. Anyway, remember to respond to the above-mentioned questions. Don’t pretend to be upset and forget to answer. Though Mr. Hoai Thanh did not know how to write, but do not let people think that you cannot read. If so, what a shame!

Le Tam

94. The excerpt from the September 2, 2004, program over VPR by CRFV set out above was broadcast and published by the defendants with malice and evil intent in that the defendants knew of the falsity of what they were broadcasting to the Vietnamese listening audience and/or stated, broadcast and published what they said as set out above with a reckless and wanton disregard for the truth. All of the allegations, about lawsuits, about bankruptcy, about business dealngs of the individual plaintiff, were false and known to be false by the defendants when they wrote and broadcast them. The same was true when the program was repeated on or about December 23 2004.
95. The program as a whole, like the excerpt above, was malicious and wanton and per se defamatory and meant to be so by the defendants, misrepresenting on purpose everything that was purported about the plaintiff Hoai Thanh.
96. The excerpt itself was malicious and wanton and per se defamatory and meant by the defendants to be so, and it was false, as the defendants well knew.
97. The excerpt contains many specific per se defamatory words and phrases.
98. The Vietnamese word (Thang dai bip) is translated in the excerpt as the "conning" or, in the plural "connings." In the ninth paragraph, beginning, in English, "The third victim…," for example the word is used in the singular, and in the fourteenth paragraph, beginning, in English, "Sir, the list of victims is still long," it is used in the plural. This word thus means criminally deceiving as in a criminal "conning" a victim as a "con artist" in the English phrase.
99. The related forms of the word, in Vietnamese (Thang dai bip) is the equivalent of, and can be translated into, in English, "con artist" and is repetitive of the per se defamation. It is used in paragraphs nine, ten, twelve, and fourteen and even augmented in Vietnamese, as the phrase (Thang dai bip the gian) which makes even clearer that the plaintiff Hoai Thanh is accused of a criminal act.
100. In paragraph twelve there is a further augmentation, in Vietnamese, (Thang vo liem si) where the plaintiff Hoai Thanh is called a "shameless big con artist." This is to make it clear that the plaintiff Hoai Than is accused of being a criminal who is guilty of punishable crimes.
101. In paragraph fourteen there is even further augmentation in that the plaintiff Hoai Thanh is called in Vietnamese a (Nhung hanh dong lua gat bi oi), which translates into English as "villainous big con artist."
102. None of these accusations is true and are all defamatory per se and meant to be so.
103. The excerpt uses variations on the Vietnamese word, in verb form, which in English is "to steal by trickery" in the sense of an actionable crime. The Vietnamese equivalent, (luong gat) is used in the past tense, in English "cheated," and the Vietnamese (lua dao) for the English participle form "cheating" and, in the plural, "cheatings."
104. This term luong gat too is, and its variations are, defamatory per se and the accusations made by use of the word are false and known to be false to the defendants when they decided to use the word and its variations and specifically applied them too the plaintiff Hoai Thanh.
105. In the same way the defendants used in this broadcast program the quoted words (Thang nay quy quyet gian ma) and (ma manh) in Vietnamese meaning in English "cunning" and "cunningly" in the sense of a dishonest man who deceives and tricks in a criminally dishonest manner.
106. The following terms were also used:

1. (Thằng lưu manh) in Vietnamese, meaning in English "crook."

107. All of these terms as used in the context of the broadcast were per se defamatory and known to the defendants to be false and were used with recklessness and malice.
108. The broadcast stated that the plaintiff Hoai Thanh had filed "bankruptcy" in the course of dealing with one Khuong. This accusation was false and known to be false to the defendants when they decided to use it.
109. This last defamatory false statement was intended maliciously to harm the business reputation and credit of both plaintiffs.
110. The accounts of judicial proceedings in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, in the Circuit Court of Montgomery County, Maryland and in the Circuit Court of Arlington County, Virginia are unfair, false and malicious. The assertions of those accounts in the above excerpt from the VPR/CRFV broadcast are slanderous and defamatory, designed and intended to falsely lead the Vietnamese listening public to believe that the plaintiff Hoai Thanh lied and deceived to, and committed fraud upon, the courts, when he did not do so but proceeded fairly in accord with the rules of the courts and the law. Defendants designed and intended these false representations to expose the plaintiff Hoai Thanh upt to the wrath, hatred, contempt and ridicule of the Vietnamese speaking American public and, by reflection, his newspaper, the plaintiff Dai Chung BiWeekly newspaper, also. They have deprived the plaintiff of business customers and readership and of the benefits of public confidence and social intercourse, and, as such, are slanderous and defamatory per se.
111. All of the above slander, libel, and defamation aimed by the defendants at the plaintiff Hoai Thanh was designed to deprive him of business in his newspaper and auto businesses and to deprive the plaintiff Dai Chung BiWeekly Newspaper of its readers and advertisers and did so, the general defamation of the program, and the specific defamation of the particular words and phrases in the above broadcasts in a campaign of similar broadcasts repeated again and again over literally years up to the present time with an intent on the part of the defendants to continue such broadcasts into the future unless prevented from further defamation against the plaintiffs.
112. The plaintiff Hoai Thanh lost most of the Vietnamese business in his Maryland auto business as a direct result and had to sell the business.
113. The plaintiff Dai Chung BiWeekly Newspaper lost its readers and advertisers as a direct result to the point where it has had to repeatedly miss issues and now suspend publication in hard copy indefinitely. Contributors and subscribers have been driven away as a direct result.
114. The defendants with this defamation and the large number of similar defamations over a period of years have directly, maliciously and unlawfully caused the plaintiff Hoai Thanh to become vexed, harassed, intimidated, threatened physically, to receive threatening phone calls and curses and insults in the street and public places, to become injured and suffer great mental and nervous strain and emotional stress and trauma, and to cause the same to occur to his wife and children and other relatives, He and his family have been unable to rest and sleep well, have been unable to work with their usual effectiveness and efficiency, and to have had to have medical treatment for conditions directly resulting from the attacks, to suffer scorn, contempt, ridicule, and obloquy from the Vietnamese community in all the states where VPR programs are heard and to suffer a loss of public confidence and social relationships. The plaintiff Hoai Thanh, for example, is a veteran of the Army of the late, lamented, Republic of South Vietnam and a member for many years of the organization in this country of such veterans. Now he is shunned by members of that group as a direct result of the defamation by the defendants.
115. Before this campaign of defamation as part of the defendants’ campaign of false light began and before the defendants began to employ their pattern of racketeering activity directly against the plaintiff Hoai Thanh, Hoai Thanh had a good reputation in the Vietnamese community and was considered fair and honest, a leader among his peers. Defendants have willfully and maliciously destroyed that.
116. The plaintiff newspaper has likewise, by this defamation against its princii-pal and also against itself, had its former good reputation damaged and destroyed and its personnel and associates have received a treatment similar to that of the plaintiff Hoai Thanh.

1. General Damages in the amount of at least five million dollars.
2. Special Damages in the amount of one million dollars.
3. Punitive and exemplary damages in the amount of ten million dollars.
4. Injunctive relief to command repeated publication in broadcasts in all 22 states of acknowledgement of the falsity of the defamations against the plaintiffs, and for injunctive relief on a temporary and then permanent basis to prohibit any further such defamation, and
5. Any and other further relief as to the Court shall seem meet and proper at law or in equity.

117. Plaintiffs restate and incorporate all the preceding paragraphs of this complaint.
118. The individual defendants, and all of them, conspired together as set out in the previous counts in order to perpetrate the torts of slander and libel and defamation to damage the plaintiffs and destroy the plaintiff Hoai Thanh’s business, livelihood and life, his standing in the community, his ability to socialize and to torment and cause emotional suffering and harm to him, his wife, and his family.
119. The corporate defendants conspired together to the same end, and were used by the individual defendants as instrumentalities to that end.

6. General Damages in the amount of at least five million dollars.
7. Special Damages in the amount of one million dollars.
8. Punitive and exemplary damages in the amount of ten million dollars.
9. Injunctive relief to command repeated publication in broadcasts in all 22 states of acknowledgement of the falsity of the defamations against the plaintiffs, and for injunctive relief on a temporary and then permanent basis to prohibit any further such defamation, and
10. Any and other further relief as to the Court shall seem meet and proper at law or in equity.

120. Plaintiffs restate and incorporate all the preceding paragraphs of this complaint.
121. For six and one half years the plaintiff Hoai Thanh has operated the plaintiff Dai Chung Biweekly Newspaper at the above address, and also in Virginia.
122. The plaintiff Dai Chung Biweekly Newspaper has during its time of operation circulated and had readership in the entire Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, including Maryland, Northern Virginia and the District of Columbia.
123. Also at the above address in Maryland for the Dai Chung Biweekly Newspaper, the plaintiff Hoai Thanh operated an auto body shop, Duramax Auto Body, Incorporated, doing business as Duramax Auto Service Center.
124. On August 30, 2001, the four above-named defendants, VIETNAMESE PUBLIC RADIO, INC., COMMITTEE FOR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN VIETNAM, INC., HUNG NGOC GO, and HIEN THI NGO, filed and commenced a civil action against the plaintiffs Hoai Thanh and Dai Chung Biweekly Newspaper a civil action and also against the pen name of the plaintiff Hoai Thanh that he used to write columns in the Dai Chung Biweekly Newspaper, "Van Nam," in the Circuit Court for Montgomery County, Maryland. It was assigned the civil number 224653v.
125. This suit was for defamation in four counts (I, III, V, VII) and intentional interference with "prosective" [sic] advantage in four counts (II, IV, VI, VI).
126. The defendant THAI H. NGUYEN, ESQUIRE was the attorney who filed the suit in question and was counsel of record throughout its prosecution until it ultimately failed for lack of merit.
127. The defendant THAI H. NGUYEN, ESQUIRE was also an officer and director of the defendant Committee for Religious Freedom in Vietnam, Incorporated (CRFV) at all times pertinent hereto.
128. The suit sought $25,000.00 in compensatory damages and $300,000.00 in punitive damages on each of the eight counts.
129. Plaintiffs were served with the complaint, answered, and the action was joined.
130. The mentioned action was commenced and prosecuted by the defendants to this suit maliciously and without probable cause in that the defendants knew, with regard to their counts and allegations as to interference with prosective [sic] advantage, that there was no such "prosective" or prospective advantage that the defendants had or possessed, much less any with which the plaintiffs, or any of them, had interfered.
131. The mentioned action was commenced and prosecuted by the defendants to this suit maliciously and without probable cause in that the defendants knew, with regard to their counts and allegations as to defamation, that they alleged that the plaintiffs had stated through the plaintiff biweekly newspaper that the defendants had engaged in "embezzling" funds when, in fact, no such statements had ever been made in the plaintiff publication.
132. In fact, the opposite was true, as the defendants herein well knew.
133. The defendants conspired and concerted together to launch the meritless law suit in question for the purpose of interfering with and damaging the business advantages and business of the plaintiffs.
134. They did this for the purpose of launching their own newspaper to rival the plaintiff newspaper, take away its advertisers and business and prevent the individual plaintiff from continuing in the newspaper business once they had interfered with and damaged the business of the plaintiffs.
135. They did this through the defendant attorney, who was not paid very much for his efforts, but functioned as a participant in the associated-in-fact enterprise in order that they might financially drain the plaintiffs so as to destroy the business advantages and prospects and business of the plaintiffs, because they knew that the plaintiffs would have to hire expensive representation and be tied up in the law suit with time and resources even though the defendants knew full well that their law suit had no sound basis in fact and no legal merit.
136. The mentioned action was commenced and prosecuted by the defendants maliciously and without probable cause in that the defendants knew, with regard to their counts and allegations as to defamation, that the plaintiffs herein had only questioned what the defendants had done with funds that the defendants raised through radio shows.
137. The defendants filed the lawsuit complained of in order to stop the plaintiffs from questioning and looking into the defendants’ fundraising activities in connection with solicitations for funds that defendants claimed were to be used to give relief to flood victims in Vietnam because they knew that the plaintiffs’ exercise of free speech in this regard would help the plaintiffs’ business advantage and correspondingly diminish their own.
138. These solicitations were published on a radio system to the public in 22 states.
139. The defendants knew that the plaintiff newspaper was smaller and had no radio outlet that worked with it.
140. So the defendants launched a campaign of, among other things, accusing the defendants of charging them with "embezzlement" and interfering with the defendants’ opportunities, even as the defendants set out to use their law suit to interfere with the business of the plaintiff newspaper and supplant it with a newspaper controlled by the defendants.
141. The defendants well knew that to question what happened with funds raised by the defendants’ publishing activities and to ask for accountability to the public of the the Vietnamese-American communities in 22 states was not the same as accusing the defendants of "embezzlement," but, nonetheless, the defendants pursued their baseless lawsuit against the plaintiffs, even raising funds through the radio publishing activities of the defendants for the purported purpose of funding the meritless lawsuit against the plaintiffs.
142. The defendants knew, and are charged with knowing, that such questions as the plaintiffs raised were legitimately raised under the First Amendment protections of Freedom of the press and speech.
143. The mentioned action was commenced and prosecuted by the defendants cynically and maliciously for the purpose of destroying the plaintiff biweekly newspaper’s business and the other businesses and livelihood of the plaintiff Hoai Thanh by exhausting his resources in causing him to have to spend over $150,000.00 in counsel fees while the defendant attorney received a mere $500.00 or so, according to statements made by the attorney defendant.
144. The defendants compounded this reckless and wanton malice by using their radio broadcasting to destroy the plaintiff Hoai Thanh’s businesses and business reputation, broadcasting continually and incessantly attacks on his character and business reputation and capability in which they continually defamed and slandered him and the plaintiff Newspaper by direct calumny and attack as well as constantly encouraging callers in to the radio shows to slander, defame and even physically threaten the plaintiff Hoai Thanh with bodily harm, including murder, and his biweekly newspaper with physical destruction of its property and facilities.
145. In a further show of wanton and reckless malice in their filing of and prosecution of the law suit complained of, the defendants started their own Vietnamese language newspaper to compete directly with and supplant the plaintiff biweekly newspaper in the Washington D.C. Metropolitan Area by use of the device of the frivolous and meritless law suit complained of.
146. By reason of defendants’ actions complained of, plaintiffs suffered injury to their business, business reputation, credit, plaintiff Hoai Thanh’s personal credit, business reputation, mental state, emotional state, health, family relationships, economic loss and pain and suffering in the amount of $3,000,000.00.
147. By reason of defendants’ actions complained of plaintiffs incurred reasonable legal fees and expenses to defend and defeat the frivolous lawsuit in the amount of $150,000.00.
148. Because the defendants initiated and conducted the malicious prosecution complained of recklessly, wantonly, and with malice and a total disregard for the rights of the plaintiffs, the plaintiffs are, therefore, entitled to exemplary and punitive damages in the amount of $9,000,000.00.
149. The defendants launched not just one such law suits, but a series of them, additional numbers of such suits in Montgomery County being ccivil numbers 242835 V and 240210 V. All of these lawsuits have been essentially the same, and all equally baseless. None have been won and all have been either dismissed and/or lost on the merits within the last three years.
150. The defendants have launched many other such baseless lawsuits against other victims who dare to question their use of funds. In the action in the Montgomery County Circuit Court mentioned in 147 above, number 242835 V, the four named defendants herein sued, in addition to the plaintiffs in this case, the following:

1. Khai Tan Le of Olney, MD
2. Tang Huu Nghia of Tigard OR
3. Tam Minh Ngo of Salem OR
4. Dong Phuong News, Inc. of Seattle WA
5. Saigon Radio Broadcasting System, Inc. of Seatlle WA
6. Quoc Nam of Seatlle WA
7. Chinh Nghia News, Inc. of Chamblee GA
8. Son sVan Ha of Chamblee GA
9. Kim Au of Chamblee GA

151. All of these parties, like the plaintiffs herein, dared to question the use of funds by the defendants herein that they raised in the defendant VPR’s programs after initially being deceived by the present defendants and supporting their efforts through their own Vietnamese language local media.
152. This activity of malicious prosecution with baseless law suits is part of a pre-planned concerted effort that is part of the pattern of racketeering activity engaged in by the defendants.

WHEREFORE, plaintiffs pray in this count for over $150,000.00 in actual and compensatory damages in legal fees and costs, an additional $300,000.00 for emotional distress, pain and suffering, an additional $500,000.00 for damages to their businesses and business reputations from the "hurt" caused by the lawsuits combined with the broadcasts, and $9,000,000,000.00 in punitive damages.

WHEREFORE, plaintiffs pray in this count for over $150,000.00 in actual and compensatory damages in legal fees and costs, an additional $300,000.00 for emotional distress, pain and suffering, an additional $500,000.00 for damages to their businesses and business reputations from the "hurt" caused by the lawsuits combined with the broadcasts, and $9,000,000,000.00 in punitive damages.

PLAINTIFFS DEMAND A TRIAL BY JURY ON ALL ISSUES SO TRIABLE UNDER THE CONSTITUTION AND LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES.

Respectfully submitted,

______________________________

Laurence A. Elgin USDC-MD # 13609
Suite 900 South Building
601 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20004-3615
(202) 628-1114
(202) 628-6798 - fax
lawnet@earthlink.net

VERIFICATION UNDER PENALTY OF PERJURY

I, Hoai Thanh, individually and as the President and owner of Dai Chung News Media Incorporated, hereby swear and affirm under penalty of perjury this 21st day of December, 2005, that the foregoing complaint, and all it’s allegations, are known by me to personally be true to the extent that they can be known and to the extent that they cannot be so known they are based upon my best information and belief.

____________________________

Hoai Thanh