A St. Paul man who threw a fatal punch outside an East Side bar following a birthday celebration was sentenced Monday to nearly a year in the workhouse and five years of probation.

Pheng Vang, 39, had pleaded guilty in Ramsey County District Court to the sole count of first-degree manslaughter for throwing a single punch that killed Peter Nguyen, 38, outside the Far East Bar & Restaurant in the Payne-Phalen area on March 23, 2024.

Peter Nguyen, 30, of Coon Rapids, died March 23, 2024, after being found unresponsive on a sidewalk in the area of Arcade Street and Case Avenue. (Courtesy of GoFundMe)

Nguyen, of Coon Rapids, was found unresponsive on the sidewalk outside the bar at Arcade Street and Case Avenue just before 1 a.m. He died soon at Regions Hospital of a head injury.

Vang reached an agreement with the prosecution in March that included the 360-day sentence. His attorney, however, argued in court Monday that he should serve the time under house arrest.

“To put it bluntly,” Judge Edward Sheu said in handing down the sentence, “I don’t know how you can kill someone and not spend some time in jail.”

An 8½-year prison sentence was stayed as part of the plea agreement, which includes that Vang complete 100 hours of community service. The state and defense agreed Monday on the length of his supervised probation.

With Vang’s 16 days of custody credit, Sheu noted, and the state’s rule where offenders serve two-thirds of a sentence in custody, Vang will be in the workhouse for about 7½ months.

‘Terrible choice’

According to the criminal complaint, a witness told police that Nguyen “had some kind of issue with people who had been attending a birthday party at the bar” and was “squaring up to fight” with a man outside.

The witness said that another man, later identified as Vang, came up along the side of the man Nguyen was going to fight and struck Nguyen with his fist, causing Nguyen to fall to the ground.

Vang then left the area.

“He made the decision to sucker punch someone who wasn’t even looking at him,” Assistant Ramsey County Attorney Maureen Cleary said Monday in arguing against electronic home monitoring. “And, after that, he left immediately.”

Pheng Vang (Courtesy of the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office)

Vang was arrested 12 days after Nguyen’s killing. He told police in an interview he was starting to leave the bar when “an argument began to escalate” on the corner and that he walked up to defuse the situation. He said he punched Nguyen when Nguyen reached down to pick up a shot glass.

Vang’s attorney, Heather Sia of the St. Paul nonprofit Neighborhood Justice Center, said Monday in court that Nguyen was an aggressor and had “squared up” to engage in a fistfight with Colin Vue, Vang’s cousin, in the middle of the street. She said Vang acted in the defense of his cousin.

In her presentencing memo to the judge, Sia wrote that Nguyen had become intoxicated throughout the night resulting in a blood alcohol level of 0.17. She said he also had cocaine in his system.

“(Vang) wasn’t out there inciting people to fight,” Sia said. “He was actually out there trying to stop it. He made a terrible choice in the way that he tried to stop it.”

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Vang is known by his family and friends as a protector and peacemaker, Sia said. She noted how in 2013, Vang, at age 27, was seriously injured while fighting off a man who had stabbed, beaten and choked Vang’s girlfriend. The attacker was sentenced to 16 years in prison.

Prosecutor Cleary acknowledged in court the defense’s claim of Vang being a peacemaker, that he tried to de-escalate the situation outside the bar.

“Peacemakers do not throw punches,” Cleary said. “And while what happened that night was tragic and unforeseen … he did intend on punching him. He did intend on getting involved. He did make those choices. And those choices cost Peter his life.”

By MARTHA BELLISLE

SEATTLE (AP) — A federal judge on Monday granted a preliminary injunction to stop Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem from killing a collective bargaining agreement for Transportation Safety Administration workers.

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U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman of Seattle said in her order that an injunction is needed to preserve the rights and benefits that TSA workers have enjoyed for years while being represented by the American Federation of Government Employees.

In their lawsuit, Pechman said, the union has shown that Noem’s directive to end the agreement “constitutes impermissible retaliation against it for its unwillingness to acquiesce to the Trump Administration’s assault on federal workers.” It also likely violated due process and AFGE is likely to succeed in showing that Noem’s decision was “arbitrary and capricious,” she added.

“Today’s court decision is a crucial victory for federal workers and the rule of law,” AFGE National President Everett Kelley said in a release. “The preliminary injunction underscores the unconstitutional nature of DHS’s attack on TSA officers’ First Amendment rights. We remain committed to ensuring our members’ rights and dignity are protected, and we will not back down from defending our members’ rights against unlawful union busting.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian Kipnis declined to comment on the judge’s ruling, according to Emily Langlie, spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s office.

AFGE had entered into a new, seven-year collective bargaining agreement with agency last May, but Noem issued a memo Feb. 27 rescinding that agreement. One week later, TSA informed the union about Noem’s directive, saying the contract was terminated and all pending grievances would be deleted.

AFGE filed a lawsuit against Noem, claiming the move was retaliation against the union for pushing back against the Trump administration’s attacks on federal workers. AFGE had filed a separate lawsuit Feb. 19 against the Office of Personnel Management to stop the firing of probationary workers. A judge issued a temporary restraining order Feb. 27 stopping the firings — the same day Noem issued her memo.

Abigail Carter, representing AFGE during oral arguments before Pechman on May 27, said Noem’s move was retaliation and a violation of the union’s First Amendment right to protected speech and its Fifth Amendment right to due process.

“The administration has made it clear that if you don’t disagree with it politically, you and your members can keep your rights, but if you do disagree, you lose them,” Carter said. She also argued that the collective bargaining agreement was necessary because TSA workers are not covered under the federal labor-management code. The agreement protects them from dangerous working conditions and unreasonable hours.

Kipnis denied the retaliation claim and said it was simply a difference in management styles.

Pechman questioned that contention. Not all unions are banned by the administration, Pechman said, only the ones oppose the administration.

“Isn’t this a pattern that you see?” Pechman asked Kipnis. “Attorneys who take opposition stances get banned. Those who don’t, don’t have those restrictions. Isn’t this the pattern that the White House has set up?”

Kipnis said tension between unions and management are common and this conflict doesn’t signal a violation of the workers’ First Amendment rights, but instead reflects a confrontational relationship.

But Pechman wasn’t convinced.

Previous TSA managers have found unions to be beneficial and renewed their contracts for years, she said. They found they made a happier workforce, and “they wanted their employees to feel that they were well-treated,” she said. What has changed is this administration’s attitude, she said.

To that, Kipnis replied: “Or you could characterize it as a different management style. The former administration apparently saw that as a better way to do business. … But this administration sees a different way of doing business. And the same statute affords them the same amount of discretion.”

Pechman said she understood that the administration has the right to exercise that discretion, “but to abruptly cancel doesn’t seem well reasoned, so I’m having trouble with that.” She also noted, “But why the United States gets to back out of contracts that it’s made is harder to accept.”

In Monday’s order, Pechman said TSA workers would suffer “irreparable harm” without the injunction, noting that if they lose their collective bargaining agreement, they will lose the benefits it provides.

“While the loss of money alone does not show irreparable harm, the total harms here are more than monetary,” Pechman said. “They include the loss of substantive employment protections, avenues of grievance and arbitration, and the right to have a workforce that can unite to demand benefits that might not be obtainable through individual negotiation.”

Ramsey County has established an Economic Development Authority, allowing the county to assist small businesses in areas such as technical, advisory services and expansion.

The county’s Housing Redevelopment Authority previously was only able to fund specifically housing-related projects. With the addition of the EDA, the HRA’s levy funding now can be used more broadly, according to District 6 Commissioner Mai Chong Xiong. Small business programming, for example, would be allowed.

The creation of the EDA is allowed due an omnibus bill signed last month by Gov. Tim Walz.

“This legislation allows Ramsey County to use the HRA levy more flexibly by expanding what it can fund without adding another tax,” Xiong said in a May 27 statement. “That means deeper investments in small business support, commercial corridors, workforce infrastructure, and the stability of the neighborhoods we serve. Notably, the passage of the EDA comes at a critical time as counties brace for significant cuts to federal funding to housing, creating high-stakes urgency to stretch every local dollar further and smarter.”

City councils in the county who are members of the HRA must opt-in or opt-out of business programming through the passage of resolutions by June.

Expanding the HRA’s authority supports the county in taking a more modern approach to an affordable housing plan, said Rep. Liz Lee, DFL-St. Paul, who authored the legislation in the Minnesota House. It will allow the county to focus on needs beyond just housing.

It could mean affordable housing units above a nonprofit laundromat, Lee said. It will help officials create a community people want to live in, rather than just concentrating those living in poverty into public housing.

Mixed-use projects can be challenging to develop across the entire county, said Josh Olson, Ramsey County’s director of Community and Economic Development.

“I think the two things that I would say is, this is about flexibility more than anything else. It’s about our opportunity to kind of support the community in a proactive but also holistic way.” Olson said. “The other is, the county is going to remain focused on affordable housing. That is, and has been the lion’s share of how we’ve spent the HRA, and I expect that to not change substantially even with this change in legislation.”

The flexibility ties into the county’s Economic Competitiveness and Inclusion Plan, with the county focusing on adding affordable housing, redevelopment, businesses and workforce, Olson said.

“We’ve been in a housing crisis here, nationally, regionally, and we have felt that we still can intend to invest heavily through our multiple uses, but that investing solely in housing or narrowly in housing doesn’t get the county out of a housing crisis,” Olson said. “And so one aspect of that is in that intersection where it supports businesses, and that, in turn, supports job opportunities and job growth as well as wage growth. And so that’s really kind of the nexus that links all these things.”

The county directed $11.1 million to affordable housing and redevelopment projects as part of the 2022-2023 budget.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — A Romanian citizen pleaded guilty on Monday to engaging in a plot to use “swatting” calls and bomb threats to intimidate and threaten dozens of people with bogus police emergencies, including a former U.S. president and several members of Congress.

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Thomasz Szabo, 26, is scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 23 by U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson in Washington, D.C.

Szabo was extradited from Romania in November 2024. He was charged with Nemanja Radovanovic, 21, of Serbia.

Szabo pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy and one count of making bomb threats.

The two men targeted roughly 100 people with “swatting” calls to instigate an aggressive response by police officers at the victims’ homes, a federal indictment alleges.

A U.S. Secret Service agent’s affidavit doesn’t name the former U.S. president or any other officials identified as victims of the hoax calls.

The two defendants are not explicitly charged in the indictment with threatening a former president, but one of the alleged victims is identified as a “former elected official from the executive branch” who was swatted on Jan. 9. 2024. Radovanovic falsely reported a killing and threatened to set off an explosion at that person’s home, the indictment says.

Szabo told Radovanovic that they should pick targets from both the Republican and Democratic parties because “we are not on any side,” the indictment says.

“This defendant led a dangerous swatting criminal conspiracy, deliberately threatening dozens of government officials with violent hoaxes and targeting our nation’s security infrastructure from behind a screen overseas,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement.

Charges against Radovanovic are still pending. Online court records indicate that he hasn’t made any court appearances in Washington yet.