A 30-year-old Irvine man who admitted fatally stabbing two men in Anaheim has battled schizophrenia for years and has been hearing voices since he was 10, his attorney told jurors Tuesday in the sanity phase of his trial.
But a prosecutor said Ramy Hany Mounir Fahim carried out extensive planning into the rage killings.
Fahim pleaded guilty April 7 to two counts of murder with special circumstance allegations of multiple victims and lying in wait. He also admitting a sentencing enhancement for the personal use of a deadly weapon.
Testimony began Tuesday in the sanity phase of the trial, since Fahim has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. If jurors find he was legally insane at the time of the killings, Fahim would be sent to a state hospital until he is restored to sanity. If he is found to have been sane, he will be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
The burden of proof is on the defense, which has to show he was criminally insane by a preponderance of the evidence, a lower standard than beyond a reasonable doubt.
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 at 2100 E. Katella Ave., 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’s attorney, Marlin Stapleton Jr. told jurors in his opening statement of the sanity trial Tuesday that the case was a “horrible tragedy.”
Both victims were “extremely likable, intelligent young men with bright futures,” Stapleton said. The two were pals at Chapman University and roommates after they graduated.
Fahim and Cuomo worked together at a wealth management office in Newport Beach.
Fahim grew up in Cairo in an upper-class family, as his mother was a high-ranking Egyptian official. When he was 6 he moved to Chicago, where he lived until he was 10 and then moved to Rome, where he resided until he returned to Cairo to finish the last two years of high school, Stapleton said.
Fahim returned to the U.S. to attend USC, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in math and then a master’s degree in data sciences at Columbia University, Stapleton said.
Fahim began receiving treatment for his mental health in high school but, “He was hearing voices as young as age 10,” Stapleton said.
Fahim took a break while studying at Columbia when he was diagnosed with schizophrenia in September 2018, but he finished his degree in 2020 and moved to Florida, Stapleton said. In March 2021, he was involuntarily hospitalized in Florida following “bizarre threats” toward his parents, Stapleton said.
Fahim received anti-psychotic drugs while in Florida, the defense attorney said. Fahim moved to Orange County in 2021 when his mother used her connections to get him a job here, Stapleton said.
Fahim received a new anti-psychotic drug while being treated in Orange County about a month before the killings, Stapleton said.
Fahim went to Cuomo’s apartment complex the night before the killings, Stapleton said. He was seen looking into doorbell cameras so one of the residents called security, who found him in a common area on a lounge chair. The defendant told the guard he resided there, and was left alone.
The following morning when Cuomo stepped out of his door to go to work, Fahim plunged a dagger into his neck and the two tumbled back into the apartment where the defendant repeatedly stabbed the victim. Bahm locked himself in a bathroom and called 911 but the defendant forced his way in and killed him before police arrived.
Fahim waited in the kitchen of the apartment for officers, his attorney said. The defendant told a detective questioning him multiple “completely bizarre statements” about planning Cuomo’s killing, including, “We’re going to blame this on my schizophrenia,” Stapleton said.
Fahim had been having issues with his co-workers leading up to the killings, Stapleton said. Some of his co-workers complained about his hygiene and told supervisors he was “scary” and wanted him fired, but, “nothing was done about it,” the defense attorney said.
Two defense experts are expected to testify Fahim was legally insane at the time of the killings, while two prosecution experts disagree, Stapleton said.
Senior Deputy District Attorney Jeff Moore said the defendant had “been planning for this day for four years. He foresaw this day. He needed a reason and he needed an out and that out was to blame it on schizophrenia.”
The defendant’s mental health contributed to the killings, Moore said, but he added, “Was he legally insane at the time? Not a chance.”
Even as his Miranda rights were being read to him, Fahim was telling an investigator he was schizophrenic, Moore said.
Fahim was teaching online college courses for a nonprofit, Moore said.
“He has schizophrenia, but he’s highly functioning,” Moore said.
When Fahim started working at Pence Wealth Management in November 2021, he initially got along well with Cuomo, who even took Fahim to a Rams game, Moore said.
But by February 2022, the “office dynamic was changing,” Moore said.
“The office culture became toxic,” Moore said.
Fahim’s coworkers characterized him as “rude, arrogant and narcissistic,” Moore said.
“He thought he was above the work he was given” by Cuomo, according to the prosecutor.
Fahim also complained to his supervisors about the “office politics,” Moore said. Fahim also griped about Cuomo’s “micromanaging,” he said.
Fahim had conversations with his mother about his desire to kill Cuomo, Moore said. The defendant struggled with depression, loneliness and anger management, Moore said.
Fahim also showed an “obsession with murder and death” with a journal that also included his desire to be a serial killer, Moore said.
Fahim wrote in his journals that he wanted to “do violence for the hell of it,” Moore said.
He claimed the “voices were telling him to do it,” Moore said.
Fahim also wrote how he wanted to behead Cuomo and bury it, and also scouted out locations in the wilderness, Moore said. Fahim bought a hunting dagger he used in the slashings online, the prosecutor said.
“The planning he did was extensive,” Moore said. “In mid-March he was trying to hire a hitman to help him.”
Fahim searched for a hitman in Orange County, the prosecutor said. He also searched for how to clean blood and where to best bury a body, the prosecutor added.
Fahim had a shovel and tarp in his car, Moore said.
Fahim got into the building when he told an exiting resident he was there to visit a friend and asked her to hold the door open, Moore said.
Fahim spent 10 hours in the common area of the building waiting for Cuomo because he knew when his co-worker got out the door to head for the office, Moore said.
Cuomo “never had a chance” and was “ambushed” as he left for work, the prosecutor said.
Fahim’s frenzied stabbing attack was mostly “kill shots” to the head, Moore said.
“It was brutal, absolutely brutal,” Moore said.
But for all his planning, Fahim made one significant mistake, Moore said.
“He didn’t know he had a roommate,” Moore said.
Bahim’s 911 call was played for jurors, who heard the victim multiple times ask if officers were on the way.
“Please hurry. I don’t know what to do,” Bahim told a dispatcher.
Then Fahim is heard forcing his way into the bathroom as the victim screams, “Help, help, help!”
The defendant didn’t bother to try to hide his co-worker’s body as he planned, Moore said.
“He knows he’s cooked. He knows he’s done for so he waits for the police,” Moore said.
“You’re not even going to need the doctors” to make a decision, Moore said. “This is a common sense, straightforward case.”