Conviction in Cambodian Actor’s Slaying Overturned

A federal judge has overturned the conviction of a man found guilty of the 1996 killing of Haing Ngor, an Oscar-winning actor who survived Cambodia’s killing fields.

In papers filed in federal court Monday, U.S. District Judge Margaret Morrow gave final approval to a magistrate’s decision to overturn the conviction of gang member Tak Sun Tan, who is serving a 56-year-to-life sentence. The magistrate judge found in November that prosecutors had, among other things, unfairly played on the jury’s sympathies when describing hardships Ngor had faced in Cambodia.

Deputy Atty. Gen. Steven Mercer said the state is weighing whether to appeal the court’s ruling, according to City News Service. Tan must receive a new trial or be released, according to the decision.

Prosecutors charged that Tan was a member of the Oriental Lazy Boyz gang and had helped two other gang members rob Ngor moments after he parked his Mercedes-Benz in the carport of his Chinatown residence.

Prosecutors argued that the three men killed Ngor when he failed to give up a heart-shaped locket that contained a photograph of his wife, who had died in a Khmer Rouge work camp in Cambodia while giving birth.

It was not clear Monday whether the ruling applied to Tan’s co-defendants, Indra Lim and Jason Chan, who were convicted by separate juries.

During trial, prosecutors said the three gang members were under the influence of crack cocaine at the time of the Feb. 25 killing, and were looking to rob somebody. Witnesses to the incident had moved out of state for fear that their cooperation would get them into trouble with the gang.

In recommending that the conviction be overturned, U.S. Magistrate Judge Patrick J. Walsh wrote that prosecutors had argued that Ngor struggled to keep the locket because it contained the only surviving photograph of his wife.

In fact, he had one other in his bedroom and a negative for the locket photograph. Walsh wrote also that prosecutors improperly urged the jury to convict Tan based on the “the victim’s laudable life or the injustice of the victim’s prior suffering.”