SEATTLE -- Kwan Fai 'Willie' Mak, accused of masterminding the robbery of a Chinatown gambling club in which 13 people were killed, was convicted Wednesday of 13 counts of premeditated first-degree murder.
Jurors then heard more than two hours of testimony on whether he should live or die for his part in the massacre at the Seattle gambling den.
Mak, 22, was the second young immigrant from Hong Kong convicted of the Feb. 19 slayings in the Wah Mee Club -- the worst mass murder in WasOington state history.
The jury of six men and six women deliberated slightly more than seven hours to reach the guilty verdict. They then heard more than two hours of testimony in the penalty phase of the trial and retired to a hotel.
Deliberations on whether Mak will be put to death or spend life in prison without possibility of parole were to begin Thursday morning.
Benjamin Ng, 20, was convicted of 13 premeditated murders in August by a jury that recommended life in prison rather than the death penalty.
Before finding Mak guilty, the jurors listened to a tape recording of an emergency room interview with Wai Chin, 62, the sole survivor of the massacre and the key witness against both Mak and Ng.
The jury also found Mak guilty of first-degree assault in the shooting of Chin.
His taped interview with a Seattle police officer was conducted just a few hours after Chin stumbled out of the high-stakes gambling club bleeding from bullet wounds in the neck and jaw.
During the interrogation, Chin said Mak, Ng and a third man pulled guns, hog-tied patrons and employees and then methodically shot them in the back of the head. He testified at Mak's trial that the defendant, Benjamin Ng and the third suspect, Tony Ng, 26, all fired shots during the massacre.
Mak testified he went to the Wah Mee with the two Ngs, who are not related, only to beat up a member of a rival Chinatown tong and not to rob it. He claimed he left the gambling club before the killings took place.
