Pasadena Woman Pleads Guilty to Making Threats to Bomb U.S. Consulate

A 39-year-old Pasadena woman has pleaded guilty to federal charges of stalking and making bomb threats targeting the U.S. consulate in Vietnam. Natalie Nguyen entered her plea on Wednesday, April 9, admitting to a nearly year-long campaign of harassment and threats.

Nguyen, who has been in federal custody since February 2024, pleaded guilty to one count of stalking and one count of threat by interstate commerce to kill another person and to damage and destroy buildings by fire and explosives.

According to her plea agreement, Nguyen stalked a victim identified only as “T.H.” from April 2023 to February 2024, sending multiple emails threatening to kill him and his wife. One of these threatening emails contained screenshots of a text conversation about paying a hitman $15,000 to kill the victim’s wife.

The harassment extended to five employees at the U.S. consulate in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Nguyen frequently impersonated T.H. and his wife in her communications. In August 2023, while impersonating T.H.’s wife, she threatened to “bomb the [expletive] consular in Ho Chi Minh City.”

In October 2023, Nguyen gained unauthorized access to T.H.’s email account and sent a message to three government employees at the U.S. consulate stating, “i wil [sic] kill every [expletive] one of you who has been delaying issuing my wife visa.”

The threats continued into 2024. In January, Nguyen sent a message through an online portal claiming, “Device will be detonated at America consular in Saigon and in San Francisco. All of you will be exploded for causing my separation with my husband for this last year. Everything will be exploded around new year or after.”

In February, Nguyen impersonated T.H. again in messages to both U.S. and Vietnamese officials, threatening to detonate grenades at the consulate during lunar new year celebrations. She sent an inquiry to a U.S. Embassy online portal threatening to explode grenades around the time of the lunar new year at the consulate. Minutes later, she sent an email to the Vietnamese consulate stating, “i have a grenade set to be exploded this lunar new year at the consulate. my wife is ready.”

United States District Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett has scheduled sentencing for June 18. Nguyen faces a maximum sentence of five years in federal prison for the stalking count and up to 10 years for the threats count.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation investigated this matter with assistance from the Diplomatic Security Service. Assistant United States Attorney Diane Roldán of the Violent and Organized Crime Section is prosecuting the case.