Dawn Nguyen's mom: Why no shotgun charges in Charles Tan case?

When the Democrat and Chronicle first reported in July that a friend of Charles Tan likely purchased the shotgun used to kill Tan’s father, Dawn Chung took to Twitter.

Why, she asked, had the friend — who we now know to be Whitney Knickerbocker — not been charged with falsifying the federal purchase form if he did indeed buy the gun for his friend and Cornell University classmate, Charles Tan? When buying the gun at a Cortland County Walmart, Knickerbocker maintained the gun was for him — a likely violation of federal law if he gave it to Tan — but was not charged.

Nor, to this day, has he been charged.

tan gets a gun by a real straw purchase and blows his fathers head off and no charges because off the media and money — dawnmarie chung (@dawntherebel) October 10, 2015

Dawn Chung has a personal interest in the case. She is the mother of Dawn Nguyen, who bought the shotgun and semi-automatic rifle that William Spengler Jr. used on Christmas Eve 2012 when he ambushed firefighters and fatally shot two. Nguyen gave the guns to Spengler, who had accompanied her to the store for the purchase in 2010.

A felon, Spengler could not buy guns.

Nguyen, convicted in state Supreme Court of falsifying records with the gun purchase and, after a guilty plea, convicted in federal court of multiple crimes, is now serving an eight-year sentence.

In recent months, Dawn Chung has sent out dozens of Twitter comments, asking why Knickerbocker has not been charged. Tan, now 20, was accused of fatally shooting his father, Liang “Jim” Tan, with multiple shotgun blasts to the face. He was tried and a mistrial declared after the jury could not reach a verdict. On Nov. 5, County Court Judge James Piampiano ruled the prosecution did not present enough evidence to justify the second-degree murder charge against Tan and dismissed the criminal case.

Reached by Twitter this week, Chung said in a message that she is now more tired than angry.

In her response to me, she said her daughter "is not scum."

"She has feelings and a good heart. She is a danger to no one but yet she gets hung."

There are differences in the two cases: Nguyen admitted she gave the guns to a known felon, a man who served prison time for fatally beating his grandmother with a hammer. Knickerbocker and Tan were graduates of Pittsford Mendon, where they were football teammates. Excellent students, they both attended Cornell.

However, Spengler did not use the guns for more than two years. Whoever killed Tan may have used the gun only hours after the Feb. 5 purchase from the Walmart in Cortland.

In a September column, David Andreatta covered much of the same ground I'm writing about here. Since then, we now have had the trial and the dismissal of the murder charge against Tan. Writing to me, Chung said she is frustrated that no one, whether Tan or someone else, is now being held accountable for the murder of Jim Tan or the gun purchase.

"Now we have a murderer walking free and the person who bought him the gun does not matter," Chung wrote. "It seems to me people pick and choose who pays and who does not. No one ever deserves to die. Murder is never the answer."

The Northern District of the U.S. Attorney's Office, which covers Cortland County, would be the office to prosecute Knickerbocker if it determined he had committed a crime with the shotgun purchase. A spokesman for the office declined comment this week. The Cortland County District Attorney's Office also declined comment.

Knickerbocker's attorney didn't respond to a request for comment.

Nguyen is now appealing her sentence, maintaining that the U.S. District Judge David Larimer erred with the severity of the sentence. She has a New York City attorney, Andrew Freifeld, handling her appeal, and arguments are scheduled before a federal appellate court in New York City on Dec. 10.

New york State Appeals court, appeals court: free Dawn Nguyen or charge Whitney Knickerbocker with a ... https://t.co/mi9epyMEZD via @Change — dawnmarie chung (@dawntherebel) November 2, 2015

Her Rochester trial attorney, Matthew Parrinello, has contended that Nguyen's sentence was excessive when compared to others. Just this month, Parrinello noted, a woman who illegally bought a handgun for her felon boyfriend — a semi-automatic handgun he later used to fatally shoot a police officer — was sentenced to a year of probation in Omaha, Nebraska.

Parrinello said he, too, is curious whether Knickerbocker will be charged.

"It definitely is catching my eye as to what they're going to do with that," he said.

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