From refugee to Golden State Killer prosecutor, he’s now running for Sacramento DA

Thien Ho came to the United States in 1976 as a refugee from Vietnam, a 4-year-old boy whose father used his toy pistol to bluff the family’s way through checkpoints and flee across the South China Sea on a fishing boat.

“My father had stolen a uniform from a communist officer and painted my toy gun black so we would be able to evade the military checkpoints,” Ho recalled. “We ran out of gas, ran out of food, ran out of water.

“Eventually, we made it to a refugee camp. I can tell you that we came to this country with nothing but the clothes on our back.”

More than four decades later, Ho prosecuted the largest criminal case in California history – the proceedings against Golden State Killer/East Area Rapist Joseph James DeAngelo – and secured a sentence of 12 life terms that ensure the disgraced former police officer will die inside a California prison.

Now, the 47-year-old Democrat and lifelong prosecutor plans to announce Monday that he is running to succeed Sacramento District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert, who is a candidate for state attorney general.

In an exclusive interview Thursday with The Sacramento Bee, Ho said he is the most qualified candidate among the three who have announced plans to run so far, that his experience inside and out of the courtroom is “unrivaled, unmatched.”

“I believe that the people of Sacramento County deserve the veteran, seasoned hand of a prosecutor that has a proven track record and the leadership skills necessary to protect the public, to connect with the community and to build bridges,” Ho said in an interview in a conference room at the Senator Hotel downtown. “I believe that I have the experience, the expertise and the empathy to do those very things.”

Ho enters a race that is shaping up as the most diverse in county history, with two Black prosecutors also vying to succeed Schubert. All three are Democrats.

Deputy District Attorney Paris Coleman, 56, already has won Schubert’s endorsement. Alana Mathews, 46, a former Sacramento prosecutor running with a focus on criminal justice reform, also has said she is running.

But Ho contends he will have the support of law enforcement and community groups, and notes that despite Schubert’s endorsement of another candidate, he already has won her backing in other ways.

She picked him to prosecute DeAngelo along with Deputy District Attorney Amy Holliday, and she has promoted him twice, most recently in April to become assistant chief deputy district attorney. Ho also was named the D.A.’s prosecutor of the year in 2017.

“I don’t know the answer exactly as to why Anne Marie endorsed someone else, but I do know this,” Ho said. “When it was time for her to choose somebody to prosecute the biggest, most complex case in the history of Sacramento County and, possibly in the state, she chose me.

“When it was time for her to promote someone to run the gangs and hate crime and major narcotics units, she chose me. When it was time for her to choose someone to be on her executive management team and be an assistant chief, only one of six positions in the entire office, she chose me.

“And I’m confident that the people of Sacramento County would choose me, as well, as the next district attorney.”

From refugee to high-profile prosecutor

In addition to his courtroom experience, Ho is counting on his remarkable personal story and the empathy he says it has helped him develop to appeal to voters.

After fleeing Vietnam, Ho, his parents and his younger brother ended up in a refugee camp in Malaysia before a Catholic church in Stockton sponsored them to come to the United States. In Stockton, the family shared a two-bedroom apartment with Ho’s uncle, his entire family sleeping in one room atop a mattress Ho and his father found discarded in an alley and toted up stairs.

“We cleaned it up, and that’s what the four of us slept on,” he said. “So I appreciate everything that this country has offered because it’s given us the opportunity and the freedom to dream and to fulfill those dreams.”

The family later moved to San Jose, where Ho grew up. He was an undergraduate at UC Davis, then went on to the McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento, where he has taught as an adjunct professor for 14 years, he said.

After law school, he went on to stints as a prosecutor in Contra Costa and Santa Clara counties, then returned to the Sacramento region in 2004 and started out at the bottom, working misdemeanors and juvenile cases for then-District Attorney Jan Scully.

Ho, who is married to a pharmacist and has three children, worked child sexual assault and abuse cases, then moved to adult sexual assault cases, the gang and hate crime unit and, eventually, homicide.

Supports death penalty

Despite Gov. Gavin Newsom’s moratorium on the death penalty in California, Ho said he believes “it is appropriate in certain situations to impose the death penalty.”

“If there’s anybody on the face of the earth that deserves the death penalty,” it was DeAngelo, Ho said.

Prosecutors originally announced they would seek the death penalty in that case, but agreed to a plea deal – with support of DeAngelo’s victims – because of concerns that a full-blown trial would last as long as a decade and see many victims die before a verdict was reached.

Even before the DeAngelo case, Ho was well known for tackling complex cases. He prosecuted the notorious Lilly Manning case, a child abuse case that ended in the conviction of Manning’s great aunt and husband.

Manning, who became known in Sacramento as “the girl with 100 scars,” escaped from a locked closet in south Sacramento at 15 after years of beatings, hammer attacks, burns and death threats. Ho stayed on the case through sentencing even after he moved to another unit in the D.A.’s office.

He won plaudits from victims in the DeAngelo prosecution, where he made certain DeAngelo’s victims were able to look the predator in the eye in court and deliver victim impact statements some had been waiting decades to make.

Endorsed by former sheriff, East Area Rapist victim

Kris Pedretti was 15 when DeAngelo, then known as the East Area Rapist, raped her the week before Christmas in 1976. When it came time to prosecute DeAngelo, her case fell outside the statute of limitations, but Pedretti said Ho made certain she and other victims were part of the process.

“As a victim, I felt very supported and kept in the loop,” Pedretti said Friday. “His dedication to his job just shines through.

“I would be thrilled to have the D.A. spot filled by Thien.”

Prominent Sacramento defense attorney Tom Johnson, a former prosecutor in the office, also supports Ho.

“He has a huge skill set as a prosecutor,” Johnson wrote in a text message Friday. “I think he keeps our community safe.”

And former Sacramento Sheriff John McGinness told The Bee Friday that he plans to endorse Ho.

“I think he is a true champion for justice, a passionate advocate for justice,” McGinness said. “His personal life story, the challenges he’s overcome and the success that he’s earned is incredible.

“He’s a true American success story.”

Plans to reach out to community

If elected, Ho says he has three priorities: protect the public, connect with the community and build bridges.

“I want to start, essentially, a cabinet of community leaders that sit on this cabinet and are invited to have a seat at the table, to have their voices heard so a relationship can be built and trust can be built,” Ho said.

That could take some doing. The D.A.’s building at Ninth and G streets in downtown Sacramento has been surrounded by a cyclone fence because of racial justice protests and marches against Schubert’s decision not to charge two Sacramento police officers who shot Stephon Clark to death in March 2018.

Clark, 22, was an unarmed Black man killed at night in the backyard of his grandmother’s home, and police have said the officers believed the cell phone Clark was carrying was a gun.

The case spawned massive protests and harsh criticism of Schubert, who has never filed charges in a case of an officer-involved shooting.

Ho said he would have come to the same conclusion Schubert – and, later, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra and U.S. Attorney McGregor Scott – did about not charging the officers.

“Law enforcement conducted a thorough investigation and the DA’s Office conducted an extensive analysis of the facts and the law,” Ho said. “While I was not involved in the review of that case, after listening to both Anne Marie Schubert and AG Xavier Becerra’s press conferences, I believe that their analysis followed the law and the facts, arriving at the legally correct conclusion.”

He added that one of his “guiding principles” is to follow the facts and the law of a case.

“And if the facts and the law indicate and demand that somebody is held accountable for their actions, that’s exactly what I’m going to do,” he said.