Man Convicted of Circus Circus Murders Sentenced to Life Without Parole

A Las Vegas jury has sentenced a man to life in prison without the possibility of parole for a 2018 double homicide at Circus Circus, saving his life from the death penalty.

A jury on Tuesday found Julius Trotter guilty of two counts of murder with a deadly weapon, two counts of robbery with a deadly weapon and burglary with a deadly weapon, convicting him of fatally stabbing Vietnamese tourists Sang Nghia and Khuong Nguyen in their hotel room on June 1, 2018.

He was accused of killing colleagues during a “door push”, where someone tries to find hotel rooms with doors left open to steal things. Nghia and Nguyen’s hotel room at Circus Circus, where they visited hours earlier, had a broken lock, prosecutors said.

Although the jury convicted Trotter of the two counts of murder, U.S. District Judge Michelle Leavitt will formally sentence him on the robbery and burglary charges, plus the deadly weapon enhancement on all charges, during a Jan. 15 hearing.

The the punishment phase of the trial it lasted Tuesday and Wednesday, with testimony from family members of Nghia and Nguyen, as well as Trotter’s family. The verdict was read on Thursday at 11.00

The jury found that mitigating factors, such as Trotter’s good behavior while in custody and supportive family, outweighed the aggravating factors that made it possible for prosecutors to pursue the death penalty, including multiple murders and the commission of the crime in during a robbery and burglary.

Trotter was seen saying “thank you” to the jury after the verdict was read.

Nghia was a mother of three who worked as the president of a tour guide company she operated with her husband. Nguyen was one of her employees, and the two were last-minute additions who came with a third tour guide and a group of clients traveling to the United States from Ho Chi Minh City.

Nghia’s husband and Nguyen’s mother said they were pleased with the jury’s verdict sentencing Trotter to life in prison rather than the death penalty.

“True, the tragedy has already happened, the person is gone,” Hung Nguyen, Nghia’s husband, told the Review-Journal through a translator. “With the punishment, I feel it’s appropriate for the crime … I don’t want to end another human’s life.”

Khuong Nguyen’s mother, Bong Le, was seen crying throughout much of the trial. She told jurors while testifying during the penalty phase that her husband died of complications from a stroke after learning of her son’s death. She said she overcame the past six years to witness the trial.

“Losing my son was so painful for me,” Le said Thursday, speaking through a translator. “Today justice was done.”

Prosecutors did not directly ask the jury to sentence Trotter to death during closing arguments Wednesday, focusing instead on the violent nature of the crimes. Chief Deputy District Attorney Michelle Fleck told jurors that Trotter deserves “nothing less than life without (parole).”

“We are grateful for the jurors’ time and consideration,” Fleck said in a statement after Thursday’s verdict. “Their service and final verdict gave the victims and their families the closure they deserve.”

Surveillance footage captured Trotter in the early hours of the morning that Nghia and Nguyen were killed taking an elevator in the Circus Circus tower where the two were staying. He was then seen in footage returning to his room at Circus Circus Manor around 45 minutes later, quickly. checking out of the hotel and going to deposit cash at an ATM and play at the Palms casino.

Trotter was arrested in California a few days later, where police found him with several items belonging to the victims.

Defense attorneys emphasized Trotter’s large family in their closing arguments and said he still maintains contact with them while helping support his children by coordinating sports betting behind bars.

“I want to continue to have a positive impact on the people around me, in terms of my family, my children, my mother, my brother and sisters and so on,” Trotter told the jury Wednesday as he asked them to spare his life.

Lisa Rasmussen, one of Trotter’s lawyers, said she plans to exercise her right to appeal. Since his arrest, Trotter has maintained that he did not commit the murders and that he received the victims’ stolen items from a friend, Rasmussen said.

“I’m really pleased that the jurors themselves chose to take death off the table, determining that the mitigating factors outweighed the aggravating factors, and that made the death penalty no longer an option,” Rasmussen said.

Rasmussen said that while this was “a very sad crime” with two people who were killed, she did not believe her client was one of the “worst of the worst” criminals who deserved the death penalty.

“To me, that’s a little bit of an overreach on the part of the district attorney, and I hope that in the future we can have better restraint on when to seek the death,” she said.

Contact Katelyn Newberg at [email protected] or 702-383-0240.