OAKLAND — Two males have been given life sentences with differing possibilities for parole within the 2018 homicide of a preferred restaurant proprietor killed outdoors one in every of her companies throughout an tried theft.
Paul Paez, 43, was sentenced to 25 years to life, whereas Donte Holloway, 45, was sentenced to 50 years to life, court docket data present. Each males had been convicted in April of murdering 61-year-old Cindy Le throughout an April 2018 tried theft in Alameda.
Prosecutors say the pair adopted Le from the Pho Anh Dao restaurant in Oakland to a second location of the restaurant in Alameda, then tried to rob her. Throughout the fracas she was knocked to the bottom and assaulted. Although witness testimony disputed whether or not each males bodily attacked her, prosecutors argued they had been each culpable for homicide underneath the regulation.
On the sentencing listening to final August, Le’s daughter, Jennifer Nguyen, submitted a written letter stating that after 5 years, Le’s household is relieved the court docket course of is lastly over. Nonetheless, Paez and Holloway are interesting their convictions, in response to court docket data.
“Our household hasn’t been the identical since she’s been gone. How might it?” Nguyen wrote, later including, “Household gatherings at the moment are seldom to none. My mom was the explanation why everybody gathered to start with.”
Nguyen went on to write down that whereas Le was buried 5 days after her dying, “it took 5 years to lastly get some solutions,” however the household can “lastly shut this chapter in our life.”
Holloway submitted a letter too, learn aloud in court docket by his legal professional, through which he wrote that regardless of having an incarcerated father throughout his upbringing, he graduated highschool, attended Chabot School, and bought jobs at KFC and UPS. The letter concluded with a plea to Choose Rhonda Burgess to “decide me in response to what pertains to me and nothing else,” and that he is aware of “how critical this case is.”
Regardless of being sentenced in late August, each males stay in Santa Rita Jail in Dublin pending switch to the state jail system, data present.
