Tri-State nail salon owner sentenced; attempted to set fire to another business

CINCINNATI (WXIX) – A Monroe nail salon owner was sentenced to 46 months behind bars in U.S. District Court on Thursday after she attempted to set a competing business on fire.

According to U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio Kenneth Parker, Kim Lien Vu, 46, of Liberty Township, admitted to the crime in September 2023.

Parker says Vu grew “animosity” toward a competing nail salon in December 2022, where she later approached one of her employees about a plot to get revenge on the business.

The employee, co-defendant Cierra Bishop, 30, of Hamilton, discussed the idea of setting the other salon on fire with Vu, Parker explained. He says Bishop began working on a “remote-controlled incendiary device that could start a fire within a small box.”

The two women texted about the plan often, and called it “Job 1.”

On Feb. 5, surveillance footage caught Bishop and a friend, now known as co-defendant Makahla Rennick, 19, of Hamilton, entering the competitor’s store, Parker said.

Rennick made an appointment for a pedicure under the name Katelynn, per Vu’s orders. Parker says Vu directed the 19-year-old to get the latest nail appointment she can and to “just use another name. Sound white.”

At this time, Vu was already at or on her way to another property she owned in Virginia so she would have an alibi ready, the attorney explained. However, she was in “constant contact” with Bishop throughout the planning process.

While Rennick was receiving her nail services, Bishop walked toward the salon’s bathroom and planted the incendiary device under a salon desk, according to Parker. An employee of the competing nail salon eventually walked toward the restroom and smelled gasoline coming from the desk.

When the employee found the device, they took it outside near the salon’s dumpster.

The employee went back outside and saw the box was on fire.

Monroe police and fire were dispatched to the salon for a report of a dumpster fire that day.

All three women were eventually arrested and indicted by a federal grand jury in February 2023.

Vu pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit malicious destruction via fire.

Bishop also pleaded guilty and is awaiting her sentencing.

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