SEATTLE – An International District nightclub owner led a drug ring that was broken up last week, federal prosecutors say.
Nho Van Vo, 26, co-owner of the hip-hop Club NV, was one of 30 people indicted on charges of selling Ecstasy, cocaine and six other drugs at nightclubs around the city.
“He has shown himself to be in charge of a number of individuals involved in this,” assistant U.S. attorney Ron Friedman said at the arraignment of Vo and four other defendants Monday.
Friedman said Vo threatened associates who owed him money and kept doing business from his apartment above the Uwajimaya grocery store even though he knew U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents were monitoring him.
More than 20 of the 30 people charged in the Jan. 16 indictment have been arrested. Five were arraigned Monday. All pleaded not guilty.
Tacoma
Two convicted in random attack: Two more teen-agers have been convicted of murder in an attack on a man by a group of young men and boys that police say just wanted to beat up someone out of boredom. Justin Hegney and Jesse Hill, both 16, could face up to 26 years in prison after being found guilty Monday of first-degree murder in the death of Erik Toews, 30. The two are to be sentenced next month. Hill also was convicted of first-degree robbery. The Pierce County Superior Court jury failed to reach a verdict on two other robbery charges against him. Prosecutors say Hill and Hegney were among eight boys and teen-agers, ages 11 to 19 at the time, who attacked Toews about 10 p.m. on Aug. 19, 2000. The other six were convicted or pleaded guilty earlier. Police said the same eight were involved in several other random attacks in north Tacoma neighborhoods that summer.
Man gets 15 years for stabbing death: A young man has been sentenced to 15 years and eight months in prison for an unprovoked stabbing death that stunned the Lower Elwha Indian Reservation. Christopher Paul Hawk, 21, who pleaded guilty earlier to second-degree murder, was sentenced Friday by U.S. District Judge Robert Bryan to a term longer than provided in federal sentencing guidelines. Witnesses told investigators Hawk was with three other men at a house on the reservation near Port Angeles following a party March 17 when he took a kitchen knife and fatally stabbed one of the others, Cordell Singleton, from behind without warning.
Oregon
Centralia man missing in Oregon forest: A Centralia man who was doing survey work for the U.S. Forest Service was missing in the Kalmiopsis Wilderness near Grants Pass, Ore., on Tuesday after he got separated from his father-in-law during a snowstorm. Todd Morris, 35, was last seen by his father-in-law, Mike Kazio, on Saturday night on South Bend Mountain about 18 miles west of Selma. The pair had been camping and doing survey work on the mountain. A National Guard helicopter was to search for Morris with infrared radar Tuesday, said Al Rhodes, emergency services coordinator for Josephine County. Rhodes said if the helicopter search fails, rescue teams may go into the forest on snowshoes – a difficult and dangerous option.
Lost wallet journeyed to Japan: When Jason Powell lost his wallet in a grass field near Corvallis, Ore., last year, he never thought it would turn up in Japan. “I’d pretty much given up on it,” said Powell, who works at a grass seed farm. “I thought if the combine picked it up, it would have been shredded by the big chompers in back. A guy came and baled the straw and exported it to Japan.” Unbeknownst to Powell, the bailer also exported his wallet. In early January, Powell got a mysterious package with a foreign postmark. He opened it, cautiously, and found a “dirty black thing” inside – his wallet – still containing $6, a license, credit cards and Social Security card. The package was mailed by Sodayuki Arimuta, a farmer from the southern tip of Japan. It contained a letter that said: “Nice to meet you. Your purse was found in my farm.”
From Herald news services
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