A Fairfax County jury convicted Huy “Max” Nguyen after prosecutors said he changed his story repeatedly about how Alison “Kate” LaPorta was shot.
FAIRFAX, Va. — A Northern Virginia man was sentenced to 23 years in prison after a jury found he fatally shot his girlfriend inside his SUV in 2024, then drove her to a hospital and gave investigators false accounts of how she was wounded.
Friday’s sentence closed the trial phase of a case that centered on whether Huy “Max” Nguyen killed Alison “Kate” LaPorta, 38, or whether, as he later claimed, she shot herself during an argument. Prosecutors said the evidence showed a domestic killing followed by a long effort to mislead police. A Fairfax County jury convicted Nguyen in September 2025 of second-degree murder and using a firearm in the commission of a felony. His sentence was below the 40-year maximum for the murder count, leaving LaPorta’s family angry and still grieving.
The case began late on April 17, 2024, when officers responded around 11:35 p.m. to Mount Vernon Hospital at 2501 Parker Lane in Hybla Valley. Police said Nguyen, then 47, had driven LaPorta there after she suffered a gunshot wound to her upper body. She was later transferred to Fairfax Hospital, where she was pronounced dead. In the first account he gave officers, Nguyen said the shooting happened in a parking lot and that a stray bullet hit LaPorta. Later reporting on the case said he also told investigators the couple had been near a karaoke club when crossfire struck her. Detectives said they tested that claim against the known facts and rejected it. The investigation led them instead to conclude that LaPorta was shot inside the vehicle Nguyen was driving. Police also said detectives recovered the gun near Nguyen’s home in Lorton. That sequence, prosecutors argued at trial, undercut the idea of a random shooting and pointed to a killing during a dispute between the couple.
Nguyen’s explanation changed again after the first interview. According to prosecutors, he later admitted the parking lot story was false and replaced it with a new version: that LaPorta had tried to shoot at him and then shot herself. NBC Washington reported that prosecutors described him as telling dozens of lies, while Law&Crime said the state argued he lied more than 400 times. The exact way that figure was counted was not detailed in the public reports, but prosecutors used it to show a pattern of deception rather than confusion. Video cited in local coverage showed Nguyen at the hospital with blood on his hands, speaking to officers only minutes after bringing LaPorta in for treatment. In one statement recounted by NBC Washington, Nguyen told investigators that LaPorta pushed his hand as he turned into a driveway, took the gun and fired herself. Jurors rejected that account. Their verdict on second-degree murder meant they found he acted with malice, but not with the premeditation required for a first-degree murder conviction.
At trial, prosecutors built their case not only on Nguyen’s shifting statements but also on the couple’s actions earlier that day. Men who had been with Nguyen and LaPorta at a pool hall testified that the pair had been arguing before the shooting. One witness said Nguyen made a chilling statement during the conflict: “The only way this argument ends is with a bullet.” Another witness recalled him saying, “I’m going to shoot this girl.” Those statements, if accurately remembered, gave jurors a view of the tension before LaPorta was shot and helped prosecutors argue that the killing did not come out of nowhere. Defense lawyers tried to cast the case differently. Public reports said they introduced hundreds of pages of medical records from about two years before the shooting, tied to a period when LaPorta allegedly had a mental health crisis and was hospitalized. The defense effort appeared aimed at supporting the claim that she could have taken her own life. But the jury still convicted Nguyen after weighing the physical evidence, his changing stories and the witness testimony about threats made before the shooting.
The public record in the case also shows how quickly investigators moved once Nguyen arrived at the hospital. Fairfax County police announced his arrest on April 18, 2024, one day after the shooting. In that release, police identified him as Huy Tien Nguyen of Lorton and said he was charged with second-degree murder and use of a firearm in the commission of a felony. He was held without bond at the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center. That early charging decision suggested detectives believed they had enough evidence to rule out Nguyen’s first explanation almost immediately. Even so, the larger case took many months to reach trial and sentencing, which is common in homicide cases as attorneys review forensic evidence, interview witnesses and litigate what the jury will be allowed to hear. Public reports available after sentencing do not spell out every forensic detail presented at trial, including the full ballistics analysis or the exact position of the gunshot inside the SUV. But the jury’s verdict shows the prosecution persuaded jurors that the evidence was strong enough to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
For LaPorta’s family, the sentence did little to soften the loss. Relatives described her as a mother of two, and they told the court and local reporters that the killing shattered the family. Her daughter, Katlin Lasky, said the judge should have imposed the full sentence allowed by law. “I think he should have gotten the full 40 and plus some,” Lasky said after the hearing. She also said her mother’s death had damaged her sleep and left the family feeling as though they had lost everything. LaPorta’s father, Tim Pounsberry, said in a victim impact statement that the killing brought “absolute destruction” to the family. Speaking afterward, he said the punishment was not enough for a man he said had murdered his daughter. Those statements reflected a common divide at sentencing hearings: prosecutors may secure a conviction, but families often measure justice against the depth of their loss rather than the guideline range or the final number of years imposed by the court.
The sentence also frames what comes next. Barring a successful appeal or later sentence modification, Nguyen will serve a long prison term in Virginia after being convicted of second-degree murder and the related firearms offense. Public reports do not detail whether defense lawyers have filed a notice of appeal, and appeals in felony cases can take months or longer to resolve. If Nguyen serves the full term cited in local coverage, NBC Washington reported he would be in his early 70s when released. The case now stands as a closed prosecution in the trial court, but not as a closed chapter for LaPorta’s relatives, whose public remarks made clear that the sentence left them with little sense of final peace. For them, the most important fact did not change between the night of the shooting, the jury’s verdict in September 2025 and the sentencing in February 2026: LaPorta never came home.
With sentencing complete, the case has moved from the question of who fired the shot to the harder reality of what remains. Nguyen has been ordered to serve 23 years, the jury’s guilty verdict remains in place, and LaPorta’s family is left to mark future birthdays and milestones without her. The next clear milestone would be any appeal filed in the Virginia courts.