An Oroville man who used a religious organization he founded to sexually assault women and young girls was sentenced to 225 years to life in prison this week, the maximum allowed under California law.<\/p>\n
Sansue Bee Vang, 58, was convicted in February by a Butte County jury of eight counts of child molestation and three counts of rape involving members of his Hmong congregation.<\/p>\n
At the hearing, five of the six named victims addressed the court, each describing the lasting toll Vang\u2019s assaults had taken on their mental health and family relationships, according to the news release from the\u00a0Butte County District Attorney\u2019s Office<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Vang founded the organization Kev Ntseeg Leej Niam Kee Tiam Vaj Lis Thum, loosely translated as \u201cBelief in the Mother,\u201d in Appleton, Wisconsin. The Hmong are an ethnic minority originally from Southeast Asia, and large numbers of Hmong people have immigrated to the United States and California over the past five decades.\u00a0After building a following in Wisconsin, Vang moved the group to Fresno in 2015 before relocating select families from Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Carolina and Fresno to Oroville in 2020. There, they began constructing a temple and religious community at the base of Table Mountain. According to state records<\/a>, the organization is based at 274 Thompson Flat Road, north of\u00a0Oroville, near Highway 70. The group\u2019s website<\/a> describes plans to develop a temple and community on 170 acres of land at a projected cost of $15 million to $20 million.<\/p>\n Followers regarded Vang as a prophet, the Butte County District Attorney\u2019s Office said.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n Evidence at trial showed Vang molested one child on five separate occasions when she was between 8 and 10 years old, threatening to beat her if she spoke of the abuse. Two adult women testified that Vang raped them. One said he warned her he would hurt her and her family if she came forward. The other testified that Vang told her \u201cterrible things\u201d would befall the Hmong community if she refused to have sex with him, the DA\u2019s office said.<\/p>\n Despite the life sentence,\u00a0Vang could be eligible for parole in roughly 20 years under California\u2019s Elderly Parole Program, which allows inmates who are 50 or older and have served at least 20 years to appear before the parole board. Vang is 58, meaning he could seek release at 78.<\/p>\n The possibility has drawn criticism from Republican state lawmakers. State Sen. Tony Strickland called it a threat to public safety.\u00a0\u201cI think the most central role of government is public safety, and allowing these folks to get out on parole will make us less safe as they go out into our neighborhoods and our communities,\u201d Strickland told KMPH-TV<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Butte County District Attorney\u2019s Office said Vang\u2019s lack of remorse and failure to accept responsibility are now part of the official record and will be considered at any future parole hearing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An Oroville man who used a religious organization he founded to sexually assault women and young girls was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":359470,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,1894,1692],"class_list":["post-359469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-sfgcentralca","tag-sfgnews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=359469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359469\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/359470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=359469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=359469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=359469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}