A jury on Thursday found a former employee of an LPL Financial-affiliated advisory firm was sane when he ambushed a co-worker at his apartment, fatally stabbing him and then his roommate, who was in the bathroom on the phone with 911 seeking help.
Ramy Hany Mounir Fahim, 30, of Irvine, pleaded guilty last month to the special circumstances murder of 23-year-old co-worker Griffin Cuomo and Cuomo's roommate, 23-year-old Jonathan Bahm, inside their Anaheim apartment on April 19, 2022.
Cuomo and Fahim worked at Pence Wealth Management, an Orange County wealth management company affiliated with LPL. Fahim had previously pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, which required the trial to determine whether he was legally insane when he committed the murders, Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said in a press release.
Besides pleading guilty to the two first-degree murder counts, Fahim admitted the special circumstance allegations of lying in wait, multiple murders, and murder to avoid arrest as it related to Bahm, who was murdered after Fahim burst into the bathroom. Fahim also admitted to an enhancement, personal use of a deadly weapon, according to the release.
Because the Santa Ana jury found Fahim was sane when he committed the special circumstance murders, he will be sentenced to two consecutive sentences of life in prison without the possibility of parole, according to Spitzer. Sentencing is scheduled for May 13.
The Orange County Register has reported that Fahim admitted the fatal stabbings to police, blaming his actions on schizophrenia and voices that had directed him to kill the men. The newspaper's trial coverage also reported that Fahim previously was involuntarily hospitalized, given a schizophrenia diagnosis and started taking anti-psychotic medication.
A prosecutor acknowledged Fahim's schizophrenia but told jurors that 10 days before the fatal stabbings, he wrote that he would blame his crime on that condition if caught, according to the newspaper.
A building security guard had encountered Fahim on the apartment complex's roof at midnight on April 18, 2022, hours before the murders, according to prosecutors. He was still inside the victims' apartment when Anaheim police responded to a 911 call; Cuomo and Bahm were pronounced dead at the scene, and Fahim was hospitalized with minor injuries before being arrested, Spitzer's release says.
"The violence carried out in that apartment was not an act of insanity. He carefully calculated how to gain access to his victims' apartment building, waiting for hours on the roof until he had the perfect opportunity to ambush his victim and execute a witness in the hopes of getting away with all of it," Spitzer said. "A mental illness defense should not be used as an attempt to escape accountability by defendants who were very much sane when they engaged in horrific acts of violence and when we have the facts to refute those claims of insanity, we will ensure justice is served."
Fahim could have been sent to a state hospital for treatment if he had been found to be insane when committing the murders, according to California news reports.
The Register reported that the jury deliberated for about two hours before reaching the sanity verdict.
Cuomo and Bahm were Chapman University graduates.
Fahim's mother was a high-ranking Egyptian government official until she resigned following her son's arrest.
The Register has reported that prosecution and defense attorneys agreed Fahim and Cuomo's work relationship soured, Fahim apparently displeased with work Cuomo assigned him and complaining he was being micromanaged.
Cuomo and other employees, unhappy with Fahim's erratic behavior and personal hygiene, tried to no avail to persuade the firm to fire him, according to the Register. The firm had hired Fahim in 2021 as a favor to his mother as a way to renew his visa, the Register has reported, citing court filings.
Credit: Anaheim Police Department
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