A Texas man accused three years ago of lying about being a doctor to trick a Middlebury College student into allowing him to do a supposed cervical cancer screening has been convicted of a federal child porn charge.
A federal jury in Burlington returned its verdict late Friday afternoon against 35-year-old Nam Vu Bui, of Houston, finding him guilty on a felony charge of possessing child porn.
He was ordered held pending a sentencing hearing, which has not yet been set. The charge carries a possible maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.
The case against Bui started in October 2016 when police say they were investigating him for reportedly sexually assaulting a student in a Middlebury College dorm.
As part of that investigation, officers seized his cellphone and discovered the child pornography on it, court records state.
Bui, according to court records, had been at Middlebury College visiting his girlfriend, a student at the school. The girlfriend, court records stated, believed that Bui worked at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center as a doctor.
Then Bui asked friends of his girlfriend to allow him to conduct exams on them in exchange for up to $1,000 as part of what he called a research experiment related to cervical cancer for a Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center residency program, court records stated.
Police say as part of their investigation they revealed that Bui was not a doctor or enrolled in a medical program.
At least one woman, court records stated, allowed Bui to conduct an exam in her dorm room, before she contacted police.
The woman, according to court records, said she agreed to take part in the supposed study because she thought it was important to improve women’s health.
As part of the procedure, the woman told police that Bui blindfolded her, telling her he didn’t want her to see the confidential medical equipment used in the study and due to the radiation it emitted.
The woman also reported that Bui told her her to remove her clothes and lay down on the bed under a blanket.
At one point, the woman told police, she removed the blindfold and saw that Bui had taken off his pants and was recording himself while he touched her.
Bui in October 2016 had pleaded not guilty to several state charges, including illegal practice of medicine, voyeurism, sexual assault, and a state charge of possessing child pornography.
Addison County’s State’s Attorney Dennis Wygmans said Monday that he has since dismissed those charges to allow the federal prosecutions against Bui to move forward.
All the state charges were dismissed without prejudice, he said, meaning they could be filed as long as the statute of limitations doesn’t expire.
And, he added, there is no statute of limitations on the charge of sexual assault.
Wygmans said that the federal child porn case was not as complicated as the state charges.
“One or the other had to take place first,” he said of the two jurisdictions.
“In federal court,” Wygmans added, “there are no depositions and that sort of thing so the pretrial maneuverings aren’t as in-depth as they are in state court and the mandatory penalty is higher in federal court than in the state court.”
The prosecutor also said the legal problems are not yet over for Bui in federal court.
Bui has several pending federal charges against him in Houston, Texas, where he had been living before his arrest in Vermont.
Bui was charged in federal court there in March 2019 with four counts, including three charges of sexual exploitation of a child, and a charge of possession of child pornography, according to court records.
Those charges all date back to incidents in 2015 when he lived in Houston, Texas. Bui had been jailed in Vermont since his arrest in October 2016.
Federal prosecutors in Vermont, through a spokesperson, declined comment Monday.
Lisa Shelkrot, an attorney who represented Bui, also declined Monday to comment on the case.