Federal officials are holding two Orange County men in pretrial custody for allegedly operating a Southern California drug ring.
Tam Thien Vu and Dao Thanh Quach were found in possession of more than 12 pounds of methamphetamine, a half-pound of heroin and an unreported amount of crack cocaine, according to a federal grand jury indictment.
Both men, born respectively in 1977 and 1974, face a maximum potential prison punishment of more than 10 years if found guilty and were detained, in part, because judicial officials consider them serious flight risks.
The situation is worse for Vu, who is also charged with selling drugs while carrying a weapon—a Sig Sauer P238—plus ammunition, which is a big no-no for a person who already has been convicted of drug trafficking in 1998, 2003, 2009, 2012 and 2014.
U.S. District Court Judge Josephine L. Staton will preside over the case inside Orange County’s Ronald Reagan Federal Courthouse.
CNN-featured investigative reporter R. Scott Moxley has won Journalist of the Year honors at the Los Angeles Press Club; been named Distinguished Journalist of the Year by the LA Society of Professional Journalists; obtained one of the last exclusive prison interviews with Charles Manson disciple Susan Atkins; won inclusion in Jeffrey Toobin’s The Best American Crime Reporting for his coverage of a white supremacist’s senseless murder of a beloved Vietnamese refugee; launched multi-year probes that resulted in the FBI arrests and convictions of the top three ranking members of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department; and gained praise from New York Times Magazine writers for his “herculean job” exposing entrenched Southern California law enforcement corruption.