A woman previously convicted for vandalizing Buddhist temples in Orange County was again taken into custody after similar recent incidents in Santa Ana and Garden Grove, officials announced Wednesday.
Police suspected Trang Tau Pham as the person behind a string of vandalism incidents that resulted in about $25,000 in damages at Santa Ana’s Huong Tich Temple in August.
Officers took her into custody after multiple statues at the temple were targeted as recently as Tuesday, O.C. officials announced at a news conference.
Pham was released in July after serving nearly a year and a half in jail, Santa Ana Police Cpl. Anthony Bertagna previously said. She pleaded guilty to charges including hate crime after taking three statues from the Chua Truc Lam Yen Tu Buddhist temple, according to authorities.
Before that, Pham was sentenced for vandalism after throwing bottles at statues in the Huong Tich Temple between December 2014 and January 2015, according to authorities.
The woman received treatment at a state hospital for about six months after being deemed mentally incompetent to stand trial in a prior case, according to O.C. District Attorney Tony Rackauckas.
Although Pham was already in custody, investigators believed that there could be other culprits targeting places of worship in the area and were investigating the incidents as possible hate crime.
Donation boxes and flowers were taken in some of the temples, said Andrew Do, chairman of the O.C. Board of Supervisors.
Officials urged the public to report all cases of vandalism, no matter how small.
Rackauckas called the incidents an “attack to our core values.”
“We don’t take those concerns lightly,” Do said.
