Man who kidnapped two girls on a pedestrian street to film pornographic videos sentenced to 9 years in prison.
The court sentenced defendant Pham Huynh Nhat Vi to 9 years in prison for kidnapping two young girls and filming them in a pornographic manner, which he then sent to a man abroad.
At noon on August 7th, after half a day of trial and deliberation, the Family and Juvenile Court (Ho Chi Minh City People's Court) announced its verdict.accusedPham Huynh Nhat Vi (21 years old, residing in Tien Giang province) was sentenced to 3.5 years in prison for "Using a person under 16 years old for pornographic purposes" and 5.5 years in prison for "Kidnapping a person under 16 years old". The combined sentence is 9 years in prison.
At the same time, the court ordered the defendant to compensate the victim with 80 million VND.
At 8:30 a.m., Vi was escorted to court by police. Upon seeing her relatives, the defendant burst into tears. The trial was held behind closed doors.
In court, Vi disagreed with the contents of the indictment. The defendant testified that she only abducted the two children to care for them and had no intention of filming pornographic videos.
The indictment states that, around October 2023, Vi had a romantic relationship with a man named Richard (whose identity is unknown) through a dating app. The two met at a hotel in Ho Chi Minh City.
In March 2024, Richard returned to Vietnam and messaged Vi, asking her to find girls aged 6-12 to film pornographic videos for him. The man said he would give her money and promised to marry Vi when he returned to Vietnam.
On the evening of April 3rd, Vi went to Dong Khoi Street and met M. and L.H.T.L. (3 years old, M.'s younger sister) sitting on the sidewalk. Vi gave the two children 10,000 dong. Afterwards, Vi lured the two children to go eat and took pictures to send to Richard, who chose the 6-year-old. Because L. was too young and there was no one to look after her, Vi took L. along. Richard messaged Vi to inform her that he had rented an apartment in the Saigon Pearl apartment building (Ward 22, Binh Thanh District).
Investigators determined that between April 3rd and 7th, Vi filmed 12 pornographic clips to send to Richard.
On April 8th, the Criminal Police Department of Ho Chi Minh City, the Police of District 1, and the Police of Binh Thanh District raided the apartment building and successfully rescued the two children. During questioning, Vi admitted to all her criminal acts.
Regarding Richard, the investigation determined that at the time of the crime, he was in the United States and directed Vi to commit the crime via Zalo. The Ho Chi Minh City Police have sent a document to the Supreme People's Procuratorate requesting judicial assistance from the Department of Justice of the United States of America to verify and investigate the case.
