PHILADELPHIA (AP) - A man has pleaded guilty to charges in a drug debt collection plot that ended in the killings of two brothers whose bound bodies were found in a Philadelphia river almost seven years ago.
Lam Trieu, 49, insisted as he pleaded guilty in federal court Wednesday to extortion, drug and conspiracy counts that he hadn’t intended any of what ensued in August 2014, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
“I did not mean for anyone to be beat or killed,” he told U.S. District Judge J. Curtis Joyner. “I just meant for them to be scared.”
Trieu is one of six defendants charged with counts related to the slayings of Vu “Kevin” Huynh, 31, and his 28-year-old brother Viet.
Authorities said the brothers were kidnapped and tortured over a $300,000 drug debt before they were driven to the Schuylkill River, stabbed repeatedly, their faces covered with duct tape and their legs weighted down with cement before they were tossed into the water. A third man also thrown into the river survived.
Trieu, speaking through an interpreter Wednesday and frequently coached by his attorneys, acknowledged having reached out to a longtime associate to collect on a debt owed to a California marijuana supplier stemming from drugs fronted to the brothers. He wasn’t charged with the kidnapping or murders.
The other man, Tam Minh Le, 50, a native of Vietnam, was sentenced to death in the slayings.
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