Lewiston man faces retrial in Bates student slaying

WARREN – A Lewiston man convicted of killing a Bates College student has been returned to Maine from Arizona to await a second trial.

Brandon Thongsavanh, 21, is being held at the state’s maximum security prison in Warren. He arrived in Maine on Thursday and was processed at the Cumberland County Jail before being taken to the prison.

Thongsavanh has been serving a 58-year sentence in an Arizona state prison for the March 2002 murder of Bates College senior Morgan McDuffee. He was sent to Arizona last May after Maine agreed to exchange one of its high-risk prisoners for an Arizona inmate involved in a 15-day hostage standoff at a prison there.

But he had to be returned to Maine after the Maine Supreme Judicial Court in October overturned his conviction and granted him a new trial.

The justices ruled that jurors were potentially prejudiced by an inflammatory phrase emblazoned on the defendant’s T-shirt.

Thongsavanh’s second trial is tentatively scheduled for April. Since he is now considered a pretrial inmate, he technically belongs at the Androscoggin County Jail in Auburn.

However, local jail officials filed a petition in court arguing that the county jail isn’t equipped to house Thongsavanh given his violent history as an inmate.

If Thongsavanh tells his lawyer, William Masselli, that he wants to return to the jail, the issue will be presented to Superior Court Justice Ellen Gorman.

“If he contests it, we’ll have a hearing,” said Capt. John Lebel, the jail’s administrator. “If he doesn’t, he’ll stay right where he’s at.”

Thongsavanh spent about a year at the Maine State Prison before being transferred to Arizona. During that time, he was believed to have been the “enforcer” for a small gang of inmates, and he was involved in an incident in which another inmate’s throat was slashed, according to affidavits written by Lebel and Androscoggin County Sheriff Ronald Gagnon.