Rafidi cop-shooting case won't go to grand jury

WARREN

The Trumbull County Prosecutor’s Office will not present information to a county grand jury regarding the shots fired at Lordstown resident George Rafidi by Lordstown Police Detective Chris Bordonaro last October, the prosecutor’s office says.

A press release signed by Prosecutor Dennis Watkins says “there is nothing that could be presented to a grand jury because there were no crimes committed by anyone other than George Rafidi, who is now under federal indictment.”

Bordonaro, other local police officers and agents with the U.S. Marshal’s Service, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Department of Agriculture went to Rafidi’s house on Pleasant Valley Drive Oct. 8 to serve a search warrant in connection with a food-stamp-fraud investigation involving Rafidi’s Breaden Market on Youngstown’s South Side.

Because Rafidi, 60, purportedly answered the door with a gun in his hand and pointed it at officers, he was charged in federal court with assaulting federal officers and brandishing a gun while doing so. He remains in federal custody.

But Bordonaro also fired four times in Rafidi’s direction when he purportedly saw Rafidi pointing his gun at other officers, officials said. The shots hit the door frame and missed Rafidi, Watkins said.

The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation conducted an investigation of the matter and turned over details to the prosecutor’s office to determine whether Bordonaro’s actions were justified.

Bordonaro “acted in self-defense or in the defense of other officers when he fired his weapon upon an armed and aggressive suspect,” so his actions were justified, Watkins said in the press release.

Read more about the case in Friday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.