Vietnamese American accuses tabloid of smearing her with ‘rape’ lies

Pham Thi Thanh Ngoc, who lives in the US, told local media in tears on Wednesday that she had her two lawyers send a letter of complaint the same day to the office of Nguoi Dua Tin (Informant), a Hanoi-based tabloid under the administration of the Vietnam Association of Jurists.

Ngoc, 40, said in the letter that she was alluded to in the newspaper’s reports as a woman, referred to only as N., who purportedly raped many taxi drivers in Hai Duong Province.

She requested Nguoi Dua Tin to take down the articles, apologize to her, and compensate her for her suffering that resulted from the reporting which “slandered, smeared, and defamed” her, according to the Vietnamese American who is now in Vietnam.

Nguoi Dua Tin made the stories up, Ngoc affirmed, adding that she also filed another complaint to Hai Duong police on Tuesday and proposed they launch an investigation, hold the paper accountable, and prosecute everyone involved.

The two lawyers – Luu Vu Anh and Hoang Cao Sang – told reporters that a Nguoi Dua Tin general managing editor denied that the paper’s stories referred to Ngoc, saying they did not “insult or do any damage to her.”

The tabloid published two stories on December 26 and 28 last year that told of N. luring “80-90 percent of Hai Duong taxi drivers” into her private home in the province, drugging the men with aphrodisiacs, and raping them.

It was reported that N. first called taxi operators to request that cars be sent to her home, after which she would invite the drivers to come inside, where they would find her wearing revealing clothes.

N. would offer the drivers some water diluted with aphrodisiacs and then use the drugged drivers to “satisfy her sexual desires,” according to Nguoi Dua Tin.

The paper called N. a “nymphomaniac” and reported that one of the victims was locked in her house for two days and forced to have sex with the woman more than 30 times.

The man was very weak after the assaults but still managed to call his supervisor for help, Nguoi Dua Tin reported.

The newspaper said that N. frightened Hai Duong taxi drivers with her sex mania so few of them dared to pick her up when operators requested that they come to the woman’s home. It went on to publish some follow-up articles after the first two.

Many other tabloids jumped in to either plagiarize the stories and publish them on their own websites or follow them up with their own articles.

Ngoc, the complainant, insisted that she is the woman referred to in the articles because Nguoi Dua Tin accompanied them with photos of her villa and even interviewed her relatives.

The newspaper also provided a description and the address of her residence as well as her personal information in the stories, Ngoc added.

She was extremely hurt and shocked at the “lies” because she had already sold her house – the reported scene of the rape – in October of last year, two months before Nguoi Dua Tin published their articles, she insisted. 

Ngoc said she will go on to submit letters of complaint to the central journalism watchdog and the Vietnam Journalists Association.

The lawyers Anh and Sang said that slander can result in seven years in jail.