Prosecutor Says 2 Men Were Hired To Kill Marijuana Dealer In Huntington Beach Ambush

ORANGE COUNTY, CA — Two men were involved in ambushing and fatally shooting a marijuana dealer in Huntington Beach four years ago, a prosecutor told jurors Thursday as one of the defense attorneys in the case said one of the men knew nothing about it and authorities got the wrong suspect for the shooter.

Tyrell Avion Lee, 37, and Jermaine Anthony Bell, 43, are charged with murder with special circumstances of lying in wait as well as assault with a semiautomatic firearm with a sentencing enhancement for the personal use of a firearm.

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Co-defendant June Chess, 36, was indicted in August on conspiracy to commit murder and is awaiting trial.

They are accused of killing 31-yer-old Jimmy Sengpaseuth of Los Angeles on Dec. 5, 2022.

"Someone wanted Jimmy Sengpaseuth dead and commissioned two people to do it," Senior Deputy District Attorney Alexa Elliott told jurors in her opening statement of the trial.

The victim was in his car with his girlfriend after visiting with his siblings looking for a place to dine out when they were ambushed by a masked man, Elliott said. The shooting occurred in the 5200 block of Tasman Drive, three blocks east of Bolsa Chica Street and three blocks north of McFadden Avenue, police said.

Sengpaseuth's girlfriend, Victoria Huynh, "ducked down" and survived the shooting, Elliott said.

Much of the evidence in the case involves pinging telephone locations of the defendants showing them traveling together and near the crime scene, Elliott said.

Sengpaseuth was illegally dealing marijuana and lived in fancy digs in an apartment in Los Angeles at the time, Elliott said. He had just started dating his girlfriend for about five months and the two were "just starting to get to know each other," the prosecutor said.

Before that, the victim dated Melanie Tran, who was also a marijuana dealer, Elliott said.

Tran's uncle, Liem Pham, bought a GPS tracker online in October of 2022, Elliott said. The prosecutor added the victim was doing online searches for a GPS detector about that same time.

Elliott said a GPS tracker was activated on Nov. 29 and surveillance video shows a masked man putting it on the victim's Toyota Tacoma.

Other evidence in the case comes from an "untraceable burner phone" that has "coded" language about a gun and the driver they were tracking, Elliott said.

The phone GPS evidence shows Bell and Chess in the same neighborhood of the victim in the days before the fatal shooting following the victim and his girlfriend, Elliott said.

"All of a sudden we see Lee's phone comes in the area," and all three of them appear to be together, Elliott said.

Investigators also linked the three to the shooting with evidence from a license plate readers showing a car linked to a relative of Bell's circling the area where the shooting occurred, Elliott said.

The prosecutor said Lee has an "unusual gait," matching the masked suspect seen in the shooting, Elliott said. The mask was later found in the car seen circling the neighborhood with the DNA of Lee and Chess on it, Elliott said.

"Once you have everything I'm going to ask you to hold them accountable for the murder of Jimmy Sengpaseuth," Elliott said.

Defense attorney Damon Lamont Hobdy, who represents Bell, noted that Bell's DNA was not found on the mask.

"You won't hear testimony that Mr. Bell knew Melanie Tran,' Hobdy said. "Or Liem Pham... He doesn't know any of the Phams."

There is no evidence Bell was acquainted with the victim either, he said.

Bell was acquainted with Chess, he said.

The defense attorney said Chess was the gunman who killed the victim.

"They got the wrong person as the shooter," Hobdy said.

Lee and Chess "look alike," the defense attorney said.

The person using the burner phone to talk to Tran and the Phams was Chess, Hobdy said.

"Jermaine Bell didn't do anything, and he didn't know anything," Hobdy said.

Kelly Rozek of the Alternate Defender's Office, who represents Lee, reserved an opening statement until later in the trial.