SANTA ANA, California — A 75-year-old Anaheim woman is facing a federal felony after prosecutors say a puppy was deliberately lured under her minivan and run over in Santa Ana — an incident investigators say was captured on surveillance video. Hanh Minh Nguyen was charged on Thursday, October 29, in a federal criminal complaint with animal crushing, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of California announced on Friday, October 30. The charge carries a statutory maximum sentence of seven years in federal prison.
Source: U.S. Attorney's Office, Central District of California (DOJ)
According to the affidavit filed with the complaint, in September 2026 law enforcement received a call about a deceased black-and-white male pit bull puppy that appeared to have been intentionally run over. Investigators then obtained a video, the affidavit says, showing a woman in a Honda Odyssey minivan opening a door and releasing the puppy from the vehicle. The animal moved under the minivan and the driver's door closed. The driver then reopened the door, dropped what appeared to be food on the street near the driver's door and motioned with her hand for the animal to come to the food. As the driver pulled forward, the puppy was run over by the rear driver's side tire — and, prosecutors allege, the vehicle remained stopped on top of the puppy for approximately 15 seconds before driving away.
Local reporting fills in the street-level detail the federal affidavit summarises. Animal services officers responding to a report of an injured dog in Santa Ana on September 8 found a nine-month-old pit bull, named Blackey in the Los Angeles Times' reporting, dead on the street. A neighbour told officers she believed a woman had intentionally killed the puppy with a minivan, and after canvassing the area police found a surveillance video that corroborated the report, Santa Ana Police Department spokesperson Natalie Garcia said, according to the Times. The video, as described in that reporting, showed a woman laying kibble on the ground near the driver's side door, placing the puppy on the ground where it rushed to eat, then getting back into the minivan and driving forward.
The autopsy findings are the grimmest part of the federal filing. The puppy's cause of death was a crushed skull, leading to complete brain damage, the U.S. Attorney's Office said — and the autopsy indicated the puppy was alive for several minutes after the incident and was likely in severe pain before he died. Prosecutors stress that a criminal complaint merely contains allegations, and that Nguyen is presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
Two courtrooms, two cases — federal and state
Police traced the Honda Odyssey to Nguyen, whom they located and arrested in Anaheim on October 1, the Justice Department said. The federal case is not the only one she faces. In Orange County Superior Court she is charged with multiple crimes including felony animal cruelty, in a case prosecuted by the Orange County District Attorney's Office; the Los Angeles Times reported the state charges specifically as felony animal cruelty and felony animal abuse by a caretaker, plus a sentencing enhancement alleging the personal use of a weapon. The Times reported she was released from custody on $20,000 bail and was scheduled to appear in court in Santa Ana on Monday, November 2. Separately, the Justice Department said she is expected to make her initial appearance in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana in the coming weeks. The FBI is investigating the federal matter with assistance from the Santa Ana Police Department, and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Dennis Mitchell and Sean D. Peterson of the Environmental Crimes and Consumer Protection Section are prosecuting it.
What is solid
- Nguyen, 75, of Anaheim, was charged Thursday in federal court with animal crushing under the PACT Act, a felony with a maximum seven-year federal sentence, per the U.S. Attorney's Office.
- The federal affidavit describes surveillance video of a Honda Odyssey, food dropped by the driver's door, and the puppy being run over by the rear driver's side tire; the autopsy found a crushed skull.
- She was arrested in Anaheim on October 1 and also faces felony charges in Orange County Superior Court prosecuted by the Orange County District Attorney.
What is only claimed
- Intent is alleged, not proven: the complaint is an allegation, no court has ruled, and Nguyen is presumed innocent in both cases.
- The sequence comes from an affidavit and from police accounts of a surveillance video reported by the Los Angeles Times — the video itself has not been adjudicated, and the defence has not yet been heard in court.
What the PACT Act is — and why a street case became federal
The case is charged under the Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture (PACT) Act, signed into law on November 25, 2019, which established a nationwide prohibition on 'animal crushing' and empowered federal authorities to pursue cases involving extreme acts of cruelty that were once left entirely to state courts. That is why a puppy's death on a Santa Ana street is now simultaneously a county felony case and a federal one. 'Luring a defenseless puppy with food only to crush him beneath a vehicle is an act of appalling cruelty,' said First Assistant United States Attorney Bill Essayli. 'Thanks to President Trump signing the PACT Act into law, we can bring federal charges for the horrific abuse alleged in this case. We will use every federal tool available to hold animal abusers accountable.'
Federal officials have been actively soliciting exactly this kind of case. MyNewsLA reported that in August, federal law enforcement announced a $5,000 reward and an FBI tip line seeking information leading to the successful prosecution of people who violate the PACT Act, and that anyone with evidence of suspected animal cruelty can email the FBI at LA-AnimalCrimesTipline@ic.fbi.gov. In this case, it was a neighbour's report and a neighbourhood surveillance camera — not a federal investigation — that started everything, according to the Santa Ana police account.
Two tracks run in parallel. In the state case, the Los Angeles Times reported Nguyen — released on $20,000 bail — is scheduled to appear in court in Santa Ana on Monday, November 2. In the federal case, the Justice Department says her initial appearance in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana is expected in the coming weeks. If she is convicted of the federal animal-crushing count, she faces up to seven years in federal prison; the state felony charges are decided separately by the Orange County courts.
For readers across Orange County — including the Punjabi and South Asian families who live and work along the Anaheim–Santa Ana corridor — the case is a stark illustration of how animal cruelty law has changed: what might once have been only a local charge now draws the FBI, a federal felony and national attention, and a single neighbour's phone call plus one surveillance video can become the spine of two prosecutions. None of that decides this case. That will happen in the two Santa Ana courtrooms, where the allegations still have to be proven.