Former O.C. football star gets 25 years for killing Newport Beach store owner

A former Orange County high school football star was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison this week for killing a Newport Beach liquor store owner while shoplifting an adult magazine.

Weston Scott Kruger, 31, was sentenced Tuesday for the 2007 killing of Hao “Tony” Huynh, the longtime proprietor of Sportsman’s Liquor Store on Newport Boulevard. A jury found Kruger guilty of first-degree murder in May.

“We’ll never see him out of prison,” Kruger’s maternal grandmother said before the sentencing. She asked that her name not be published.

According to trial testimony, Huynh confronted Kruger for shoplifting a pornographic magazine, and Kruger shoved him hard to the ground.

The 6-foot, 5-inch, 275-pound Kruger used such force that he sent Huynh, a slight man, flying backward. Huynh’s head slammed against the concrete floor, critically injuring him. He later died at a hospital from a fractured skull and massive bleeding in the brain.

Huynh “was particularly vulnerable,” Orange County Superior Court Judge Michael Hayes said.

Huynh’s wife and two children did not attend the sentencing or the trial. She worked at the liquor store with him for 15 years and the pair was well-regarded in the community, neighboring shopkeepers said.

At the time of the killing, Kruger was out on bail for separate charges of domestic violence and residential robbery. He pleaded guilty Tuesday to one count of first-degree robbery and will serve that prison term concurrently with the murder sentence.

Kruger stills faces a jury trial in the domestic violence case, in which he’s accused of shoving his girlfriend’s face into a bowl of moist dog food.

Kruger was a stand-out player on Newport Harbor High’s football team, his grandmother said, before he fell in with the wrong crowd. He alternated between her and his paternal grandparents’ homes while growing up.

“He had such wonderful moments and such down times,” she said. “I don’t know how you ever can explain it.”

As the bailiff escorted Kruger out of the courtroom, he mouthed, “I love you, Grandma.”

mike.reicher@latimes.com