The Reccless Tigers gang built one of Northern Virginia’s largest drug rings by settling scores and silencing enemies through beatings, firebombings and the killing of a government witness, prosecutor Carina Cuellar said in court. She called it a “reign of terror.”
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On the eve of a major federal racketeering trial for four Tigers that started in April in Alexandria, the prosecutor said a gang leader brazenly plotted against one final target: the trial itself.
Tony Le leaked a list of witnesses in a call from jail and an associate then posted the names on social media beneath what authorities said was unmistakable threat: “Come watch the snitches snitching.”
U.S. District Judge Liam O’Grady sanctioned the Tigers and the associate was arrested on allegations of witness tampering. Following the posting, a father and son who had linked Le to a firebombing refused to do so in court.
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The effort to disrupt the proceeding was ultimately unsuccessful. The jury convicted the gang members of various conspiracy charges for distributing drugs, kidnapping, laundering money and killing one person. They were also implicated in a second slaying. Some were found not guilty of lesser counts involving possession of explosive devices and guns.
All four face up to life in prison when they are sentenced Sept. 9.
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The verdict comes after years of intimidation that helped some members of the Reccless Tigers evade legal consequences and allowed the gang to grow into one of the most ambitious and potent criminal organizations in the D.C. region. It was ultimately a single witness who helped initiate their downfall.
Jurors heard witnesses describe how small-time drug dealing among a group of Fairfax County high school friends metastasized into a sophisticated marijuana and cocaine operation that included offshoots of the gang on both coasts, a marijuana farm in the hills of Northern California and millions of dollars in revenue.
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The case was the final piece of a sweeping prosecution that has led to nearly 30 associates of the gang being charged in recent years. Still, remnant of the Tigers remains active and a prosecutor pointed out one member even sat in the courtroom during part of the trial.
The gang members who were convicted Friday — Tony Le, his brother Peter Le, Young Yoo and Joseph Lamborn — operated with impunity, marketing drugs to high-schoolers and middle-schoolers with slick branding. Affiliates had business cards, tiger-emblazoned T-shirts and trumpeted a fast and violent lifestyle on Instagram and Snapchat.
Young Yoo, who prosecutors say was in the Reccless Tigers gang, shows off guns from a Versace backpack while wearing a Versace robe. (Video: U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia)
In one video played in court, Yoo wears a Versace robe popular with the Tigers and points an assault rifle at the camera while lip-syncing to a song. In others, a gang member tosses cash in the air at a club.
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Defense attorneys argued their clients were falsely implicated by other gang members hoping for lower prison sentences and prosecutors had failed to prove their clients took part in certain crimes.
The centerpiece of the nearly four-week trial was the slaying of 21-year-old Falls Church man Brandon White, who was killed in 2019 after trying to stand up to the gang.
“His killing exemplified what this gang did for a decade. They sold drugs — lots of drugs,” Assistant U.S. Attorney James L. Trump told jurors in his opening statement. “But they also threatened and intimidated anyone who crossed them.”
In August 2018, prosecutors said, White was beaten by gang member David Nguyen over a drug debt. White landed in the hospital with broken ribs and orbital bones.
When White was released, the gang tried to buy his silence. They offered to forgive his drug debt and give him five or six thousand dollars to dissuade him from testifying against Nguyen, according to court testimony. When White’s girlfriend was delivering their first child in the hospital that fall, his cousin showed up and tried to convince White to take the money.
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But White said his injuries cost him $74,000 — far more than the gang was offering.
“I’m going to testify,” White told his cousin, according to the testimony. “What they did to me is not cool.”
White knew the potential cost. He had already been talking to an FBI agent about how the Tigers used violence to keep enemies quiet.
At different points, the Tigers had thrown a Molotov cocktail through the window of a woman who was sleeping in her living room and tossed another at a residence where a mother was forced to flee her home with her young children, prosecutors said. A third family put their home up for sale after Tigers firebombed it twice.
“Traumatized. I can’t even go in public without being scared for my life,” White wrote in one message to the FBI agent. “I hope and I’m more than sure I’m not the only one in this messed up situation, just a lot of them are young or too afraid to come forward.”
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White took the stand to testify against Nguyen at a preliminary hearing on Nov. 19, 2018. Then he went into rehab. When the FBI agent offered to put him up in a hotel for safety, White said he would rather have the money to buy his newborn daughter a crib. The agent said that wasn’t possible, and the conversation ended there. The last message he got from White was wishing him a merry Christmas.
Meanwhile, prosecutors said, Nguyen had gotten a police report from his lawyer that made clear White had spoken to the FBI. Nguyen — who is serving a 14-year prison sentence after eventually pleading guilty to felony unlawful wounding and drug conspiracy — emailed his girlfriend the papers, with instructions to get the word out — White was a “snitch.”
Gang member Peter Le hatched a plan to kidnap and kill White, according to the testimony.
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Fahad Abdulkadir, a gang prospect, told the jury Peter Le gave him two options to pay off a nearly $17,000 drug debt. Abdulkadir could work on the Tigers’ marijuana farm or he could deliver Brandon White.
Abdulkadir chose the latter.
Prosecutors accuse Reccless Tigers gang members of murder
On Jan. 31, 2019, he and a childhood friend lured White from his grandmother’s Falls Church home, Abdulkadir testified. Instead of taking White to get drugs, the pair took him to a Giant parking lot where gang members forced White into a waiting vehicle.
Gang members caravanned down I-95 in two cars. They eventually stopped in a roundabout in an upscale neighborhood modeled on an English village in Richmond.
Peter Le and Lamborn got out and marched White into the woods, Abdulkadir told jurors. They were soon joined by Yoo. Abdulkadir stayed behind in the car and soon the quiet, bitterly cold night was shattered.
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“All you hear is gunshots,” Abdulkadir testified.
Peter Le, Lamborn and Yoo returned to the cars, but White did not.
Some of the most dramatic testimony came from one of the original Reccless Tigers, Spencer Pak, who provided key details about what he was told happened in the woods.
Pak, whose best friend was Yoo, told the courtroom he was reluctant to testify. He was required to take the stand as part of a deal with prosecutors in which he pleaded guilty to drug distribution and a gun offense.
Pak relayed a conversation he had with Yoo shortly after White’s slaying. Yoo “said he was handed a knife from Peter [Le] and stabbed [White] in the back,” Pak testified. “Then [Lamborn] shot him.”
White’s mother, who sat in the front of the courtroom, crumpled after Pak described the killing and pressed a white tissue to her eyes. Other testimony later revealed Lamborn got a tattoo of “Gravedigger” etched over one eye after the killing.
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White’s slaying was just one high-profile act of violence connected to the gang. Members were also implicated in the 2016 killing of George Mason University student Hosung “Steven” Lee, although not specifically charged.
Kevin Park, 27, testified he and his childhood friend Lee attended a “Project T” party one Saturday in April 2016 advertised on Snapchat.
Park said it turned out the event was a three-day drug and alcohol fueled bash thrown by the Reccless Tigers. They arrived to a Herndon Airbnb packed with Tigers and members of other gangs, including the Asian Boyz.
Park told jurors a fight erupted. Gang members swarmed Lee, pushing him back through a living room, the kitchen and then out of the house. Park said he eventually found Lee lying on the ground outside.
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“It looked like he was beaten up pretty badly,” Park testified.
Park told jurors he didn’t realize it, but Lee had been stabbed. Park and some friends loaded Lee in a car and took him home. Park testified that he put Lee in a bed at his parents’ house and put ointment on his friend’s face.
The next day, Park learned Lee had died during the night.
“We were just there to mingle with girls,” Park said. “We were young college kids.”
Gang members testified that the Reccless Tigers were formed around 2010 or 2011, growing out of small Korean American gangs that soon diversified.
An association with Tony Le, who was also a member of the Asian Boyz gang, helped grow the operation. Tony Le set up the gang’s marijuana farm in Hayfork, Calif., and pot was mailed back to Virginia, according to testimony.
The gang formed a group for prospects called “Club Tiger,” prosecutors said. There was also a female offshoot called “Lady T” and another named “Tiger Side” that operated in concert with the Reccless Tigers, according to testimony. Lamborn, representing himself at points, described the Tigers as affiliated with the notorious California-based Crips gang.
Lamborn sidelined his attorneys and gave his own closing statement, saying he did not take part in White’s murder.
Joseph Lamborn showed off a “Gravedigger” tattoo on his forward after killing Brandon White, prosecutors said. (Video: U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia)
White’s killing brought the gang under increased law enforcement scrutiny, and numerous arrests followed. Many gang members and associates had previously pleaded guilty to crimes associated with the gang.
Trump described White’s decision to come forward to testify against the Tigers as courageous in his closing statement. Trump said prosecutors, judges, defense attorneys and juries can be replaced in the justice system, but not witnesses.
“Without witnesses, this process doesn’t work,” Trump told the courtroom. “That’s the message these defendants tried to reject.” He added later: “Brandon White walked into a courtroom, took an oath and did his duty.”