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Rafidi gets nearly eight years in prison
YOUNGSTOWN
A federal judge sentenced George Rafidi to nearly eight years in prison for assaulting federal officers in an armed confrontation at his Lordstown residence in 2014.
Rafidi drew the 94-month sentence Friday in Cleveland from U.S. District Court Judge Patricia A. Gaughan.
He’ll be on supervised release for three years after prison.
After a two-day trial, a jury convicted Rafidi, 61, on April 2.
In the Oct. 8, 2014, confrontation, Rafidi twice pointed a .357-caliber revolver at the officers before Lordstown Detective Christopher Bordonaro fired several shots at Rafidi, said Daniel K. DeVille, a deputy U.S. marshal, who filed an affidavit and testified in a detention hearing.
Rafidi retreated into his home and emerged and surrendered shortly thereafter, DeVille testified.
The confrontation occurred as federal agents served a search warrant at Rafidi’s residence for a food-stamp fraud investigation by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, DeVille testified.
Rafidi was the owner of the Breaden Market, a convenience store on Youngstown’s South Side.
Rafidi, who was awakened by the agents, was not hit by the gunfire.
A USDA agent who jumped off Rafidi’s porch during the confrontation, however, dislocated his shoulder, and the judge ordered Rafidi to make restitution for the agent’s medical bills.
Nobody else was hurt.
Rafidi’s sentencing had been postponed because of a defense motion for a new trial based on the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s purported failure to share with the defense before the trial the results of a three-dimensional laser scan that mapped Rafidi’s home.
The judge overruled that motion, saying defense counsel was made aware of the scan before the trial and again in trial testimony.
“Although Rafidi never fired his gun, this assault still involved a dangerous weapon with the intent to cause bodily harm,” wrote David M. Toepfer, a Youngstown-based assistant U.S. attorney, in a pre-sentencing memorandum to the judge.
Saying there’s no evidence Rafidi intended to cause bodily harm, Rafidi’s lawyers, Mark H. Allenbaugh of Wickliffe, and Dennis A. DiMartino of Youngstown, argued in their sentencing memorandum Rafidi should be sentenced to the year he has already been in detention, “or, at least, [to a prison term] no greater than 84 months.”
The defense lawyers wrote: “For a fleeting moment of his life, while under the influence of powerful prescription medication, ill, and startled awake, and while still in a daze, frightened and confused and handicapped by poor vision and hearing, Mr. Rafidi made a regrettable decision to answer his front door with a firearm,” which he legally possessed.