S. Portland man guilty in ’05 turnpike slaying

ALFRED – Jurors on Friday found a South Portland man guilty of murder in the shooting death of a Massachusetts man whose body was found off the Maine Turnpike two years ago.

Huy “Tony” Van Nguyen, 34, faces 25 years to life in prison in the fatal shooting of Dung Quoc Ngo, whose body was found in October 2005 with a bullet in the head three weeks after he disappeared from his home in Boston.

Prosecutors told York County Superior Court jurors that Ngo was killed after Nguyen lost $1,800 in a drug deal rip-off.

Two other men, Nhan H. “John” Truon and Son “Sonny” Nguyen, pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of felony murder and cooperated with the state. They await sentencing.

In closing arguments, Assistant Attorney General Lisa Marchese told jurors that Tony Nguyen, Truon and Sonny Nguyen went to Boston the day after Tony Nguyen lost the money, picked up Ngo and drove him to Maine. There, Marchese said, they stopped on the Maine Turnpike in York, where Tony and Sonny Nguyen went into the woods with the victim.

“Tony Nguyen not only lost his money, but he also sought retribution for the rip-off,” Marchese said. “The defendant certainly set into motion the events that led to Dung Ngo’s death.”

Defense attorney Dan Lilley told jurors that Tony Nguyen is a Vietnamese refugee who has been married for 20 years and has four children. Nguyen also has a serious drug problem, Lilley said.

“My client was at the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong people,” Lilley said. “He got himself into a hell of a mess … he blew it by getting into drugs. But that doesn’t make him a murderer.”