Alleged Vietnamese gang member held for trial in double slaying

MURDER SUSPECT Tam Minh Le sat at a defense table yesterday and stared directly at the man who clambered out of the Schuylkill last year.

Victim Tan Voong, 20, testified to a terrifying ordeal last August in which his friends - two brothers - apparently were beaten, stabbed and then kicked into the river with him. The brothers died.

Le, 43, stared coldly and with confidence at Voong during his testimony.

Authorities have said that Le, who served prison time for a 1993 killing in Rochester, N.Y., is associated with a Vietnamese-American gang called Born to Kill.

He was held for trial yesterday by Municipal Judge James DeLeon on two counts of murder in the slayings of Vu Huynh, 31, and his brother Viet Huynh, 28; and on attempted-murder, kidnapping, conspiracy and robbery charges.

According to Voong's testimony, on Aug. 26, Vu Huynh telephoned him. "He asked me to gather some money," Voong said. "Like $100,000." Voong said he called friends and was able to borrow $40,000 in cash.

He said Huynh then told him to go to Le's house, on 72nd Street near Grays Avenue in Southwest Philadelphia. Voong said he borrowed a friend's Audi, put the money in the trunk and drove to the house, arriving at night.

Le came out to the gate and brought Voong to the garage.

"I see Mr. Vu tied up," Voong said. "I tried to run."

Voong said he also saw four masked men in the garage. He said he was hit in the face with a gun, then fell. He said he saw Vu and Viet Huynh tied up with their hands behind them, sitting in chairs, stripped to their underwear, looking as if they had been beaten. Their eyes were covered with duct tape.

Voong said that the perpetrators "zip-tied my hands behind my back," stripped him to his underwear and blindfolded him with duct tape.

"They were saying, 'Where's the money?' I said, 'In the car.' " He said they took his cellphone, $200, his clothes and his car keys. He said a man punched him in the chest, and he felt a gun on him.

Under questioning by Assistant District Attorney Ed Cameron, Voong said he was carried into a van. He heard the Huynh brothers next to him "in pain."

After the vehicle stopped, he was ordered to walk. "I felt sand under my feet," Voong said. "That's when they started stabbing me." He said he was stabbed in his chest, back and neck, then felt a chain around him. "Then, I felt someone kick me in the river."

He was still blindfolded, Voong said, and the water wasn't deep. He heard his friends scream, then heard "something drop to the water." Then he heard Le say, "Everything's been taken care of."

After he heard the vehicle's door close, he climbed out of the river by Kelly Drive, then got help. It was about 4 a.m. Aug. 27.

Police say that the Huynhs' throats were slit and their bodies weighted with buckets of tar.

Voong admitted that he initially gave police his brother's name and an incorrect date of birth.

The defendant's wife, Bich Vo, 31, also called by prosecutors to testify, said she has five children, three with Le, ages 2 to 6. Her other kids are 11 and 13.

In a statement she gave to homicide detectives on Dec. 19, she said that about 3 p.m. Aug. 26, she was about to drive to Maryland with her kids and her mom when she saw Le talking to Viet Huynh outside her and Le's house.

She said she returned late that night. Le was not home and his green van was not there.

On Aug. 27, she said, a friend of Le's called her and told her to meet Le at a house in Delaware.

In court, Vo denied that Le had told her about the killings.

But in her statement, read in court by Assistant District Attorney Alisa Shver, Vo said that after she and her children met her husband in Delaware, they drove to Rochester, N.Y., and during the drive he confessed.

Le told her that he and some associates from New York had beaten the brothers in the garage, then had told the brothers to call someone to "get the money they owed," Vo said in her statement. Le told her he got upset because the other person was taking too long in bringing money, so Le and the others stripped the brothers and blindfolded them.

Vo, in her statement, said Le told her "the third guy did come, but did not have any money, so they decided to beat him and tie him up with tape, too. Then they put them in the green van . . . and drove to the river."