A 31-year-old man pleaded guilty Wednesday to his connection to a 2019 killing in Stanton and was sentenced to two years of formal probation.
Nicholas Nguyen of Oklahoma City, pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the fact in the March 2019 fatal shooting of 31-year-old Jeffrey Cheng of Irvine. A felony count of conspiracy to commit murder was dismissed as part of the plea deal.
Nguyen’s attorney, Jack Earley, said the killing was a drug deal gone bad and that his client was not at the scene of the shooting.
“The (prosecutors) did all their due diligence and they did the right thing,” Earley said.
Nguyen’s crime was “he didn’t give them the information that might have helped them. He told them about (his) alibi but nothing else,” Earley said. “More information may have led to something else.”
Investigators have not caught whoever was directly involved in the shooting. A conspiracy charge would have been difficult to prosecute due to a change in the state law requiring more direct involvement in a killing to be held liable for murder, Earley noted.
Orange County sheriff’s deputies found Cheng’s body in the trunk of a car in the 12000 block of Leafwood Street, between Beach Boulevard and Dale Street, about 10 a.m. March 8, 2019, deputies said. There was blood on the outside of the car and the driver’s side window was smashed, deputies said.
It’s not clear when Cheng was killed or what prompted the attack.