Local News in Brief : Stanton : Sentencing Is Delayed for Restaurant Arsonist
A judge delayed sentencing Monday for a Vietnamese immigrant convicted of burning her money-losing Stanton restaurant to collect insurance benefits and gave her another month to try to prove she deserves a new trial.
Nga Tuyet Nguyen, 49, has consistently maintained her innocence of mail fraud, arson and conspiracy charges. Last month, federal jurors convicted Nguyen, largely on the testimony of a former boyfriend, of burning her Au Bon Temps de Saigon restaurant in January.
Nguyen’s attorney, A. Brent Carruth, sought a new trial, based on the allegation that federal public defender Harriet Hawkins, the trial attorney, had been incompetent.
While U.S. District Judge Robert J. Kelleher granted the defense more time, he made it clear he was not impressed with the new-trial arguments.
He called Hawkins’ defense “of the highest degree of competence,” while he labeled Carruth’s motions as “substandard.”
“The case made by the government was so compelling and so persuasive that it leaves little question that the verdict was a proper verdict,” Kelleher said.
Carruth submitted statements from Nguyen’s children, ages 11 and 13, stating that she was with them in a hotel in Reno when the fire broke out.
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