By Keith Fraser, The Province
VANCOUVER — The former owner of a nail salon accused of setting fire to her business and endangering the lives of people in Vancouver’s busy entertainment district denies she committed arson.
Trang Thein Dao Nguyen walks out of BC Supreme Court in Vancouver, BC, November 18, 2013. Vancouver nail salon owner on trial on charges she set fire to her downtown business. Photograph by: Arlen Redekop, PNG
The Crown’s theory is that Trang Thein Dao Nguyen was in financial distress and used gasoline to torch the business in the 1100-block Granville Street in the early morning hours of Oct. 3, 2011.
A prosecutor told a judge that Nguyen, who pleaded not guilty to six criminal counts including arson and arson for a fraudulent purpose, deliberately burned down the salon to collect on fire insurance she’d just bought.
But after reading a story about the Crown’s case in The Province, Nguyen contacted the newspaper to object to the coverage.
Nguyen claimed police were lying and that she herself was a victim, insisting she is not the kind of person to have committed such a crime.
“I’m not a person that’s going to destroy something. I’m a builder, I’m a giver. I’m not a destroyer.”
Nguyen said there was DNA obtained by police at the scene of the fire not related to her, but related to a man.
And she denied the Crown’s claim that she was financially distressed, being late on her mortgage and credit card payments.
“The Crown can say whatever they want. They make me a victim, they want to convict me. Am I distressed? No.”
Nguyen, who has been in the salon business since 2003 and had run the business in question for five years before the fire, said she lived well and had sponsored 11 people to come to Canada from Vietnam.
“Everybody has a house. I gave everybody a house, a car. I gave my brother an SUV. I put money in their account.”
Read the full story by Keith Fraser from the Province.
