Va. man who claimed links to tech firm Plaxo charged with killing ex-wife's new husband

A northern Virginia man who claimed a role as a co-founder of the address book software company Plaxo is accused of fatally shooting his ex-wife's new husband at her home while the woman and three of her children were inside, authorities said.

It was not immediately clear if the woman or her children witnessed the shooting of Corey Mattison, who had wed Minh Nguyen's ex-wife in recent months.

Minh Nguyen, 38, was arrested in Ashburn, Virginia, and charged with first-degree murder. He was arraigned Tuesday and ordered back to court for a Jan. 28 bond hearing.

Nguyen has described himself as a co-founder of the Sunnyvale, California-based Plaxo. Nguyen was no longer involved with Plaxo when the company was acquired by Comcast Interactive in 2008.

Nguyen's LinkedIn profile most recently lists him as an adviser to technology companies in Washington, D.C., and San Francisco.

But Todd Masonis, a founder of Plaxo who was with the company through its sale to Comcast, said that "in my nine years working on Plaxo, (Nguyen) wasn't involved in any capacity beyond some initial discussions with Sean (Parker, another Plaxo founder) before the company was incorporated."

Masonis, who is no longer with Plaxo, said Nguyen "never met or worked with any of our employees, investors, or partners. I only met him socially two or three times. Unfortunately, he appears to have overstated his connection to the company. This is a really tragic situation and our hearts go out to his family."

Also, the edit history of Plaxo's Wikipedia page shows that as far back as 2006 a person identifying himself as Nguyen would edit the page to list himself as a founder any time he would be deleted.

Court records from Nguyen's 2011 divorce do not indicate that he reaped any kind of lasting financial fortune from his association with the company. The documents say Nguyen was unemployed at the time and had been making less than $50,000 a year in the years leading up to the divorce decree, Papers show that he was ordered to pay only $750 a month in child support for the couple's three children.

The paperwork listed no significant assets held by Nguyen, other than $200,000, reflecting his half of the proceeds from the sale of the couple's Leesburg home.