PORTLAND, Maine (AP) - The Maine Supreme Judicial Court has upheld a 40-year prison sentence for a man convicted of murder in 2018 for the shooting of his domestic partner.
Anthony Leng pleaded guilty in 2019 to shooting his longtime partner, Sokha Khuon, and the judge imposed the maximum sentence allowed under the plea agreement, the Portland Press Herald reported.
Leng and his attorney argued in November that Superior Court Justice Andrew Horton did not consider sentencing in similar cases.
Maine’s highest court affirmed the sentence issued by Horton in a 13-page letter denying an appeal by Leng for a shorter sentence.
The justices wrote that Horton “properly considered other factors in setting the basic sentence, including that Leng had threatened to kill his wife on numerous occasions before he murdered her, thereby demonstrating that he had formed the intent to commit murder at some earlier time, and that he had staged the crime scene to make the victim of his abuse appear to be the aggressor.”
According to court records, Leng admitted to killing his partner on Jan. 7, 2018, after the couple returned home after watching a football game at a friend’s residence.
“Almost immediately, after Leng and his wife entered the kitchen, their younger son, who was in the living room, heard a single gunshot followed by more gunshots. He heard his mother say ‘ah,’ believed he heard her fall to the floor, and heard his father crying. He also smelled the odor of gunpowder,” court records state.
The boy entered the kitchen to find his mother lying in a pool of blood next to a gun. He and his older brother fled the home and called authorities.
The justices wrote that this act of “horrific violence” in the presence of Leng’s two children exposed them to the risk of physical, neurological, psychological and developmental harm and warranted a lengthier prison sentence.
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