Webster update: Police say killer William Spengler was with woman when she purchased guns in 2010. Read charges against Dawn Nguyen.
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Read criminal complaint against Dawn Nguyen
Dawn Nguyen, of Greece, faces a federal charge of knowingly making a false statement, U.S. Attorney William Hochul said. She also was charged with a state count of filing a falsified business record, State Police Senior Investigator James Sewell said.
Sewell said the charges are connected to the purchase of an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle and a 12-gauge shotgun that William Spengler had with him Monday when firefighters Michael Chiapperini and Tomasz Kaczowka were gunned down. Three other people were wounded before the 62-year-old Spengler killed himself. He also had a .38-caliber revolver, but Nguyen is not connected to that gun, Sewell said.
Hochul said Nguyen bought the guns on June 6, 2010, on behalf of Spengler, who as a convicted felon was barred from possessing weapons.
Spengler was with Nguyen, a former Lake Road neighbor, when the weapons were purchased at the Gander Mountain sporting goods store in Henrietta on June 7, 2010, Hochul said. The rambling letter Spengler left behind, which Hochul described as a “suicide note,” informed authorities that the guns had come from the daughter of a neighbor.
Hochul and others at the afternoon news conference described Nguyen’s alleged actions as a “straw purchase,” in which one person intentionally and knowingly buys guns for another. Spengler could not legally own or purchase guns because of a felony conviction: he bludgeoned his grandmother to death in 1980.
The felony with which Nguyen is charged carries a sentence of up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
