A Pasadena woman has admitted to stalking a man and threatening to kill him and his wife, as well as threatening to bomb a U.S. Consulate in Vietnam.
Natalie Nguyen, 39, pleaded guilty Wednesday at the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California to one count of stalking and one count of threat by interstate commerce to kill another person and to damage and destroy buildings by fire and explosives.
Nguyen stalked a man who is identified in court documents as “T.H.” and his wife from April 2023 through February 2024, per her plea agreement. She sent several emails to the man and threatened to kill him and his wife. One email included screenshots of a text conversation about paying a hit man $15,000 to kill the wife.
She sent several emails to officials — impersonating T.H. and his wife — in which she threatened to detonate a bomb at the U.S. Consulate in Ho Chi Minh City and had also stalked five of its employees, according to authorities.
In an October 2023 email impersonating T.H., Nguyen wrote to three government employees at the U.S. Consulate stating, “i wil [sic] kill every [expletive] one of you who has been delaying issuing my wife visa.”
In January 2024, this time impersonating T.H.’s wife, Nguyen sent a message to U.S. officials through an online portal: “Device will be detonated at America consular in Saigon and in San Francisco. All of you will be exploded for causing my separation with my husband for this last year. Everything will be exploded around new year or after.”
Through a message in a U.S. Embassy online portal, she also threatened to set off grenades around the time of the Lunar New Year.
Nguyen’s lawyer, Benjamin P. Lechman, said in a statement to The Times on Wednesday that “no one was physically harmed in any way in this case.”
“This is a case about a person who — at the time of the offense — was suffering from some very real mental health issues,” he said. “Ms. Nguyen is now working with a talented mental health professional and with today’s plea, has taken responsibility for her actions. She is simply seeking to put this episode behind her and move ahead with her life in a positive fashion.
“Mental health struggles affect a large segment of society and Ms. Nguyen encourages anyone suffering like she was to seek appropriate treatment as soon as possible,” Lechman added.
Nguyen has been in federal custody since February 2024, and her sentencing hearing is set for June 18. She faces a maximum sentence of five years in federal prison for the stalking count and up to 10 years in federal prison for the threats count.
