Trial Scheduled for April in Killing of CHP Officer

SANTA ANA — The trial of Hung Thanh Mai, charged with gunning down rookie CHP Officer Don J. Burt in 1996, on Friday was scheduled for next spring by an Orange County Superior Court judge.

Judge Richard L. Weatherspoon set the trial date for April 20.

Mai, 26, is charged with murder with the special circumstance of murdering a peace officer. The district attorney’s office announced Thursday that it would seek the death penalty for Mai if he were convicted.

Burt, 25, was shot seven times after he pulled over a white BMW for a traffic violation in Fullerton on July 13, 1996. The driver took off in Burt’s CHP cruiser and abandoned it about seven miles away near an apartment building where Mai lived.

Mai was ordered to stand trial last April after a two-day preliminary hearing that was marked by testimony alleging Mai’s involvement in a Vietnamese gang and a counterfeit check ring it allegedly ran.

During the hearing, a former associate of Mai who turned him in to the FBI testified that Mai shot Burt after the officer stumbled onto proof of Mai’s ties to organized crime during a search of the BMW. Burt found a bundle of forged payroll checks.

Burt’s wife, Kristen, was seven months pregnant with the couple’s first child at the time of the slaying. She gave birth to a son last September.