The wife of Orange County Assemblyman Van Tran, invisible on her husband's campaign website and largely absent from his public appearances, has found herself thrust into the center of his reelection campaign because of a criminal record just now gaining attention.
His wife, Cyndi Nguyen, pleaded no contest to three misdemeanors in 2004 and was sentenced to three years' probation for helping to concoct bogus medical bills at her paralegal office in Sacramento.
The bills charged for services that were never rendered by her brother, Dennis Nguyen, a Sacramento chiropractor. He pleaded no contest to the felony conspiracy charge and was sentenced to 120 days in jail and five years' probation. He also lost his chiropractor's license.
Five others were convicted as part of a scheme to defraud auto insurance companies of tens of thousands of dollars. What had been a quietly held family matter has turned into a campaign issue as Tran runs for a second term as the Republican assemblyman representing the district that stretches from Garden Grove to Newport Beach. It is also the first hint of scandal for a lawmaker who had previously drawn overwhelmingly positive attention as the first Vietnamese American elected to the California Legislature.
Tran has bristled at the sudden attention paid to his wife, and described their relationship as a "private love story."
The issue began to grow in the final days before the primary election earlier this month when Republican challenger Long Kim Pham recounted the charges on Little Saigon Radio and in an interview in Viet Weekly, which is widely circulated among Orange County's Vietnamese community.
Le Vu, editor of the newspaper, said Nguyen has been the talk of Little Saigon ever since.
"It's an explosive issue," he said. "In our culture, we don't bring out your personal stuff. The Western culture, they do that more."
He added that "Van Tran is very, very popular here" and can probably survive any damage caused by the news. In 2004, Tran won the seat by 16 percentage points in the safe Republican district.
Nevertheless, Tran responded angrily to the controversy, dispatching supporters to appear on the radio to dismiss the charges as too old to matter.
The efforts were for naught. Tran's Democratic challenger, Paul Lucas, picked up the issue where Pham left off.
"I think it raises questions about his integrity and his representation of the district," said Lucas, who carries copies of the criminal records to campaign events.
