A man who was charged a decade ago with arson at a Catholic church in the city of Biloxi, Mississippi, was arrested March 3 after local police said he was again being charged with the same type of crime at the same location.
Local police arrested Hung Dung Nguyen, 57, after officers responded to reports of a small fire on the steps of Vietnamese Martyrs Catholic Church on Oak Street. A Biloxi Police Department public information officer confirmed to Zeale News March 6 that Nguyen is the same individual charged with arson at the same church in August 2016.
Nguyen faces a felony charge of burning a church or place of worship, according to Harrison County jail records.
By the time officers arrived, the fire on the church steps had already been extinguished and the building did not suffer any structural damage, according to local reports from WXXV News 25, a FOX affiliate.
In 2016, Nguyen, then 47, was arrested and charged with arson after a fire damaged the church’s front doors, according to local reports by WLOX, an ABC affiliate. Witnesses reported seeing him leaving the area as flames spread near the church entrance. The pastor and nearby residents then used buckets of water to extinguish the fire. Zeale News was not able to ascertain if he was convicted for the 2016 crime by the time of publication
Jail records show Nguyen was booked into the Harrison County Jail shortly after midnight March 4 after the most recent incident and is being held on a $200,000 surety bond on the felony charge. A court date for that charge had not yet been scheduled, according to jail records.
The records also show Nguyen is facing separate misdemeanor charges tied to incidents in November 2025, including simple assault causing bodily injury, obscene electronic communication, and malicious mischief. Those cases are scheduled for a court appearance April 6 in Biloxi.