Dawn Nguyen, of Greece, N.Y. is walked to a federal building in Rochester, N.Y.(Photo: Jamie Germano, Gannett)
HENRIETTA, N.Y. (AP) - An upstate New York woman charged in
connection with two guns used in a former neighbor's deadly Christmas
Eve ambush of firefighters is due before a judge Tuesday.
Dawn
Nguyen, 24, of the Rochester suburb of Greece will plead not guilty in
Henrietta Town Court to a state charge of filing a falsified business
record, her attorney, John Parrinello, said.
She appeared on a similar federal charge in U.S. District Court last month and was released pending a return appearance.
Prosecutors
said Nguyen indicated on a form that a 12-gauge shotgun and AR-15
semiautomatic rifle she bought at a Gander Mountain store in Henrietta
in 2010 were for her, but they were really for neighbor William Spengler
Jr., an ex-convict who wasn't allowed to have them. Spengler
accompanied Nguyen to the store and picked out the weapons.
Spengler
set his Webster house on fire on Christmas Eve and shot four volunteer
firefighters, killing two, as they arrived on the scene. Two other
firefighters and a police officer were wounded. Spengler, 62, who had
served 17 years in prison for killing his grandmother with a hammer,
then killed himself.
The blaze destroyed seven homes on the narrow stretch of land on Lake Ontario.
"She's
very sorry that this individual chose to use the guns 2½ years later in
this way and really shocked about what happened," Parrinello said
Monday.
Nguyen's family for a time lived next door to Spengler, and she knew him as "Uncle Billy," the lawyer said.
"I
hope for her benefit that everybody understands how tangential, if at
all, any role she had and how it is totally unrelated to what this
maniac did on Christmas Eve," Parrinello said.
Associated Press