Pham admits violating probation after liquor store sting
JEFFERSON COUNTY – A Westminster man accused of selling alcohol to a teen-ager at a Lakewood liquor store while has was on probation for a similar offense Monday admitted violating his probation and will be sentenced next month.
Van Thien Pham
Van Thien Pham conceded he violated his parole stemming from a 2007 charge connected with a fatal traffic
accident in Monday’s hearing, but last week he pleaded not guilty to the offense that spurred the probation violation charges.
Pham was charged in early April with alcohol to an under-age member of the Lakewood Police Department Explorer unit while he worked at Alameda Square Discount Liquors, 12792 W. Alameda Parkway. The store closed in May after the city secured a summary suspension of the store’s license. Rather than fighting to overturn the suspension, Pham’s wife – who owns the store – agreed to surrender the liquor license.
Pham remains in the Jefferson County Jail in lieu of $25,000 bond.
Pham’s admission during the probation revocation hearing came just days after he pleaded not guilty during his arraignment in the latest case on June 10.
Pham is facing revocation of his probation in a case at the store four years ago, on March 13, 2007, when he sold liquor to another under-aged teen, with lethal consequences.
The teen and his friends drank the alcohol and later that night the driver of their car caused a two-car collision that claimed the life of 17-year-old Samara Stricklen and injured 20-year-old Seth Mutschler.
The driver, 17-year-old Nanette LaFleur, later was sentenced to four years in a youth-offender facility in Pueblo as part of a suspended 12-year sentence. LaFluer pleaded guilty to vehicular homicide while driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol and vehicular assault-DUI.
LaFleur initially claimed to have been a passenger in the accident that killed Stricklen, but investigators later found she had been driving.
Pham was indicted on 10 misdemeanor counts of selling alcohol to minors and was sentenced to two years in jail and four years probation in addition to community service after he entered a guilty plea to the charges in 2008. The judge also prohibited Pham from working in a liquor store as a condition of his probation.
During that trial, prosecutors revealed Pham previously had sold alcohol to minors, including the same teen who bought alcohol the night Stricklen was killed in the collision at West Alameda Avenue and Florida Street in Lakewood’s Green Mountain area.
“Working in a liquor store and the illegal sale of liquor are both in violation of Pham’s probation,” according to a spokeswoman for the District Attorney’s Office, which filed the petition to revoke Pham’s probation.
Pham will be sentenced in the parole revocation case July 19.
