Liquor store clerk gets stretch in jail after again selling booze to a teen
Van Thien Pham
JEFFERSON COUNTY – A Westminster man Monday was sentenced to 42 months in jail after admitting he sold alcohol to a teen-ager at a Lakewood liquor store while he was on probation for a similar offense.
Van Thien 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.
Jefferson County District Court Judge Lilly Oeffler sentenced Pham, 47, on 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.
Mutschler told reporters outside the courtroom he believes Pham is “a danger to the community. He doesn’t get it; he doesn’t care.”
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. Under the terms of his probation, Pham was barred from working at any liquor store.
Pham 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Pham’s probation in the 2007 case was revoked and he was also re-sentenced in that case Monday.
Oeffler ordered Pham to serve the maximum sentence, 18 months in jail, for the latest offense, then sentenced Pham to 24 months in jail for violating probation in the 2007 case. Pham will serve the two sentences consecutively, a total of 3½ years in jail. Oeffler also imposed a $1,000 fine and refused to let Pham participate in a work-release program.
Six people, including Pham, were prosecuted after the 2007 collision near the intersection of West Alameda and Florida in Lakewood. 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.
