Pham admits selling alcohol to teen in LPD sting
JEFFERSON COUNTY – A Westminster man Tuesday admitted he sold alcohol to a teen-ager at a Lakewood liquor store while he was on probation for a similar offense and will be sentenced next month.
Van Thien Pham
Van Thien Pham, 47, entered a guilty plea to charges stemming from an April Lakewood Police sting during which Pham beer to a member of the LPD’s Explorer post who was working undercover.
Despite being on probation for the earlier offense, which contributed to a fatal accident in 2007, Pham was working at Alameda Square Liquors on April 14, 2010 when he sold the LPD Explorer a 24-ounce bottle of Corona beer without asking for identification. Tunder the terms of his probation, Pham was barred from working at any liquor store.
Pham last week admitted he violated his parole stemming from the 2007 charges.
Pham was worked at Alameda Square Discount Liquors, 12792 W. Alameda Parkway, which is owned by his wife. 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 agreed to surrender the store’s liquor license.
Pham remains in the Jefferson County Jail in lieu of $25,000 bond.
Pham was working at the same store the night of 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.
Pham was indicted by the District Attorney’s Office in June 2007 on ten counts of Unlawfully Providing Alcohol to a Minor. During the course of the grand jury investigation, prosecutors learned that March 13, 2007 was not the only time Pham had sold liquor to minors and that he previously sold liquor to the same teen that made the purchase on the night of the collision on Green Mountain.
The driver of the car, 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 July 19.
