A 30-year-old Irvine man pleaded guilty Tuesday to a special-circumstances murder in the stabbing attacks on a co-worker and that man’s roommate, clearing the way for the trial to turn to whether the defendant was sane at the time of the killings.
Ramy Hany Mounir Fahim pleaded guilty to two counts of murder with special circumstances of multiple victims and lying in wait. He also admitting a sentencing enhancement for the personal use of a deadly weapon.
Jury selection is set to begin Wednesday for the sanity phase of the trial as Fahim has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. If jurors find he was legally insane at the time of the killings he faces being sent to a state prison until he is restored to sanity. If not he will be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Fahim admitted fatally stabbing 23-year-old Griffin Robert Cuomo and 23-year-old Jonathan Andrew Bahm, both of Anaheim, according to police.
Police were called about 6:30 a.m. April 19, 2022, regarding an assault in progress in an apartment in the 2100 block of East Katella Avenue, near State College Boulevard, police said.
Officers found the bodies of the two victims as well as Fahim, who sustained a minor injury, police said. Fahim was taken to a hospital, treated for the wound and then questioned by detectives, who ultimately booked him on suspicion of murder.
Fahim and Cuomo worked in finance in an office in Irvine, police said.