Category: True Crime

Vietnamese Woman Escapes Death Penalty By Impregnating Herself 

  
Via Huffington Post– A Vietnamese prisoner used syringes and another inmate’s semen to impregnate herself. The country’s penal code prohibits executing pregnant prisoners.

When a Vietnamese drug smuggler gives birth this spring, she can thank her newborn baby for saving her life. 

Nguyen Thi Hue, 42, was arrested in the coastal province of Quang Ninh in 2012 on charges of drug trafficking, local newspaper Thanh Nien News reports. She was sentenced to death two years later. When she appealed, the court upheld her sentence, according to the Associated Press.  

But it looks like Hue will avoid the death penalty after all. The Vietnamese penal code forbids the execution of pregnant women or mothers with children under the age of 36 months and orders that in those cases the death penalty should be converted to life imprisonment.  

Investigators discovered that Hue paid a 27-year-old male inmate more than $2,000 in August 2015 for his semen and syringes, which they say she used to inseminate herself. The baby is due in April, and Hue’s sentence will officially be reduced to life imprisonment after the birth.

Four officers at the prison have been suspended for alleged negligence, according to the Associated Press. 

As Thanh Nien News points out, this is not the first time a prisoner has pulled off escaping death row by getting pregnant.

In 2007, two guards who worked at Hoa Binh prison were jailed after they allowed a male inmate to have sex with a female prisoner, which resulted in a pregnancy. The prisoner gave birth to a boy in March of that year and escaped death by firing squad. 

Family Of Tamir Rice Billed For Final Ambulance Ride

 

Associated Press — The city of Cleveland is asking Tamir Rice’s estate to pay $500 for ambulance and medical services he received after being shot by a police officer.

The city requested the money as the 12-year-old boy’s “last dying expense” in a creditor’s claim filed Wednesday in Cuyahoga (ky-uh-HOH’-guh) County Probate Court. The claim states the money is overdue.

A Rice family attorney calls the claim “callous and insensitive.”

Rice, who was black, was shot by a white officer while playing with a pellet gun outside a recreation center in November 2014. A grand jury in December declined to indict the officer or his partner for the shooting.

A Cleveland police union president calls the city’s claim “unconscionable.”

$4.6 Million In Counterfeit Money Siezed From Vietnamese Couple  

  
A Vietnamese couple’s inability to keep its story straight resulted in U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents seizing $4.65 million in funny money from the travelers at the Detroit Metro Airport on Friday.
“The couple attempted to import the counterfeit U.S. $100 bills and Vietnamese Dong into the United States to be offered as burnt-offerings to the deceased, as often practiced in certain Asian cultures,” the release explained.

Customs encountered the couple on Friday when they arrived at Metro Airport from South Korea. When the couple made conflicting statements about how much money they were carrying in excess of $10,000, their luggage was examined.

A secondary search of their luggage resulted in the discovery of 93 bundles of counterfeit U.S. $100 bills and 32 bundles of counterfeit Vietnamese Dong,” the statement said.

It was not immediately known how much money the counterfeit Dong came out to, said Customs spokesman Ken Hammond.

The U.S. Secret Service, which is sworn to fight the counterfeiting of American currency — in addition to the job it is best known for, protecting the president of the United States — has custody of the funny money.

“Hell money,” as it is called, is meant to resemble legal tender, and is common in the Vietnamese culture, Hammond said.

The Vietnamese couple never tried to spend the money, and was allowed to continue on their travels, Hammond said. That said, Customs did note that “the manufacturing of, and/or importation of counterfeit Federal Reserve notes could result in federal charges.”

Originally posted on Detroit News.