San Marino Man Who Drove Truck Through Pasadena Protest Pleads Guilty to Weapons Charges

A San Marino man who drove a truck through a crowd of Black Lives Matter protesters in Pasadena last year pleaded guilty Wednesday to nearly a dozen federal weapons offenses, authorities said.

Benjamin Jong Ren Hung, 28, admitted to 11 felony charges, including conspiracy, transporting and receiving firearms across state lines, making false statements during purchases of firearms, and possession of unregistered firearms, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Sentencing was set for Aug. 23, said U.S Department of Justice spokesperson Ciaran McEvoy. Under an agreement reached last month, prosecutors agreed not to seek a sentence greater than 33 months in prison.

Hung admitted to participating in a multi-year conspiracy to make false statements to firearms dealers in Oregon and to illegally transport weapons to California, according to his plea agreement.

He provided cash to a co-conspirator in Oregon to buy handguns for him. The co-conspirator then delivered the firearms to Hung in California, prosecutors said.

The defendant also admitted that he engaged in the scheme to obtain the weapons and evade California’s firearms registration laws. He further admitted he illegally possessed three unregistered short-barreled semi-automatic rifles, which authorities seized from his family’s Lodi home last September.

In the plea agreement, Hung admitted bringing one of his illegally obtained firearms, a Glock 26 9-millimeter handgun, to a counter-protest in Old Pasadena against a group that had gathered on May 31 last year to protest against inequitable treatment of minorities by police, including the death of George Floyd at the hands of a police officer in Minneapolis.

Hung, who was driving a customized Dodge pickup with vanity license plates reading “WAR R1G,” accelerated toward an intersection where the protest was taking place, sounded a train horn installed on the truck, came to a stop, and then continued through the intersection. As he drove past the demonstrators, Hung caused the truck to emit a large amount of exhaust in what is sometimes called “coal rolling.”

The protesters scattered as the truck accelerated toward them, and no injuries were reported.

Prosecutors alleged Hung used his family’s vineyard in Lodi as a tactical training camp and gun range “to prepare for civil disorders,” according to a complaint filed last year.

Hung and his associates “communicated regularly about his plans to stockpile firearms to prepare for civil disorders,” the complaint alleged. The messages appeared to escalate in early March 2020 at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, as the far-right movement began to propagate the theory that the virus was a hoax, the document states.

One of Hung’s neighbors in San Marino described seeing the defendant on multiple occasions “wearing military-like camouflage, military fatigues and carrying a gray tactical vest,” according to court papers.

Along with the vineyard — whose business name is 157 California Reserve Inc. — and properties in Los Angeles and Pasadena, Hung’s parents own and operate an RV park in Bend, Oregon, according to the complaint.

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