By Gary Craig, Democrat and Chronicle
Federal prosecutors want a judge to ignore sentencing guidelines and sentence Dawn Nguyen to 10 years in prison.
Dawn Nguyen is led into federal court in May for a hearing on the gun charges. Federal prosecutors are asking the judge to throw out sentencing guidelines and put Nguyen in prison for 10 years. (Photo: SHAWN DOWD/Democrat and Chronicle)
While Nguyen likely did not know that firearms she bought for William Spengler Jr. would be used in an ambush of volunteer firefighters, she did “place two tactical military-style weapons in the capable hands of a man who she knew had already killed his own grandmother,” say court papers filed Thursday by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jennifer Noto.
Nguyen is scheduled to be sentenced in U.S. District Court on Thursday for her conviction in three federal crimes: lying on a federal firearms transaction when she bought a shotgun and semiautomatic rifle in June 2010; passing those weapons onto a man — Spengler — whom she knew was a convicted felon; and possessing the guns while she was a marijuana user.
The request for a 10-year sentence sets up a rare occurrence in federal court — a decision by a judge as to whether the crimes were so extraordinary that the guidelines should be bypassed. The guidelines, while only advisory, are designed to ensure comparable punishments for comparable crimes.
A judge has the discretion in unusual cases to sentence up to the maximum, which for Nguyen is 10 years for each crime.
To make his decision, U.S. District Judge David Larimer will have to weigh the question that has long been central to Nguyen’s offenses: Should she be held responsible for the Christmas Eve 2012 violence spree during which Spengler killed his sister and two volunteer firefighters?
In her court papers, Noto argues that Nguyen can not be separated from the slayings. Spengler, a neighbor of Nguyen’s on Lake Road in Webster, had previously been imprisoned for fatally bludgeoning his grandmother with a hammer.
“It is one thing to provide a gun to a person one knows to be a felon; it is something else to provide guns, as (Nguyen) did, to a person one knows to be a killer,” Noto writes.
Nguyen has pleaded guilty to the federal crimes. She also was convicted in state Supreme Court of lying on the firearms purchase form when she said the guns were for her. State Supreme Court Justice Thomas Moran sentenced her to 16 months to four years in state prison.
Read the full story by Gary Craig from Democrat and Chronicle.
