A 43-year-old Westminster man pleaded guilty Thursday and was immediately sentenced to 40 hours of community service for helping three inmates who escaped from an Orange County jail in January 2016.
Tung Nguyen pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of being an accessory after the fact. He was placed on three years of informal probation. Nguyen was originally charged with a felony, but it was knocked down to a misdemeanor as part of the plea deal.
Nguyen provided money and beer to one of the escapees, Bac Tien Duong, after the trio arrived at Nguyen's home following the breakout, according to the Orange County District Attorney's Office.
Duong, 46, Hossein Nayeri, 39, and Jonathan Tieu, 23, escaped sometime between 5 a.m. and 10 p.m. on Jan. 22, 2016, according to the sheriff's department.
They cut through a steel grate, half-inch steel bars and plumbing tunnels before accessing an unsecured part of the jail's roof and using makeshift ropes to rappel several floors to the ground, according to sheriff's officials.
