A 30-year-old Irvine man was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole Wednesday for fatally stabbing two men in Anaheim.
Ramy Hany Mounir Fahim pleaded guilty April 7 to two counts of murder with special-circumstance allegations of multiple victims and lying in wait. He also admitted a sentencing enhancement for the personal use of a deadly weapon.
But Fahim also claimed insanity, leaving jurors to decide his state of mind at the time of the killings, and they determined Thursday that he was legally sane.
Orange County Superior Court Judge Gary Paer sentenced Fahim to consecutive terms of life in prison without parole, plus two more years for the weapon enhancements. Fahim’s attorney, Marlin Stapleton Jr., requested 52 years to life or to make the life without parole sentences concurrent.
Stapleton argued that the defendant’s lengthy history of mental illness warranted the lesser punishment.
“This case warrants the most extreme punishment under the law and anything less would be an injustice,” Paer said. “There is no discount for killing two.”
Fahim killed 23-year-old Griffin Robert Cuomo and 23-year-old Jonathan Andrew Bahm, who were roommates in Anaheim, on April 19, 2022.
“I feel bad for what I did,” Fahim told Paer. “I wish I could go back and change it. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. That’s it.”
The two victims became friends at Chapman University and continued rooming together after graduation. Fahim and Cuomo worked together at a wealth management office in Newport Beach.
Fahim, who had been deteriorating mentally and drawing complaints from co-workers in the office, went to Cuomo’s apartment complex the night before the killings and then waited in a common area on the roof through the night before ambushing Cuomo as he was leaving for work in the morning.
After Fahim plunged a dagger into Cuomo’s neck and the two tumbled back into the apartment where Fahim continued stabbing the victim, Bahm retreated to a bathroom and called 911. Fahim later forced his way in and killed Bahm while he was on the phone with a dispatcher.
Griffin Cuomo’s father, Robert Cuomo, struggled to read his victim impact statement, breaking down often and shaking as he recounted learning the news of his son’s death.
Telling his wife the news “will haunt me forever,” he said. Cuomo said he still feels hurt that he “couldn’t protect him from this monster.”
Cuomo’s sister, Megan Niland, said in a written statement that her brother “never failed to make me laugh … He constantly danced in and out of rooms like a weirdo and made everyone laugh until they cried.”
She said that while he was her “baby brother,” she looked up to him as her “rock. He was the one I went to for guidance.”
She recalled coming home as a “new mom” of an 11-month-old daughter to hear the child crying while her husband hurriedly packed to go see their family.
“I asked him what’s wrong, and his expression I will never forget,” she said. “I asked is Griffin OK and why are you packing clothes? … He couldn’t get the words out.”
She dropped the groceries she had just bought and “screamed” in grief, she said.
“That feeling is forever buried into my heart,” she said.
Niland said she puts on a brave front when her daughter asks about her uncle, but she has to turn away to hide a tear.
“She asks how did he die and we tell her he got a big owie we couldn’t fix,” she said, adding that now her daughter worries when anyone gets injured. The family struggles with fear now, she added.
Spencer Belt became friends with Cuomo and Bahm at Chapman and the three became roommates in college.
“They were the kindest people,” Belt said.
The COVID-19 pandemic split them up as Belt continued his academic work online. The two visited again in 2022 three weeks before the victims were killed, he said.
“I lived the next nine months in a fog,” Belt said of his grief. He would often wake up at night crying, he added.
Bahm’s father, David Bahm, said his son was a “happy child,” and if he would get upset, “We knew he (only) needed a minute to see him smiling again.”
David Bahm recounted being there “for everything, his first steps, his first words … I taught him how to ride a bike, how to drive a car.”
Bahm was the eldest of three boys, his father said. He was his younger siblings’ “confidante and best friend. And as the oldest he set the tone,” his father said. Bahm graduated with an engineering degree and was a “hard worker and talented,” his father said.
David Bahm said he has buried most of the memories of the trauma of his son’s killing.
“Most of my memories are dark. If they’re in there I can’t reach them,” he said. “Our family is functioning, but everything we do feels incomplete.”
Bahm’s brother, Evan Bahm, said, “I often see Jonathan in my dreams … In them I’m updating him on my life.”
Evan Bahm said his brother was the type of person who would have wanted to help Fahim.
“At first when I heard it was an insanity plea I wanted it to be true,” Evan Bahm said. “I could attribute it to the chaos of the universe.” But he lamented the defendant put his family “through this charade.”
Bahm’s other brother, Bryan, said his sibling taught him to “always forgive, always show kindness.”
He said his brother “was always there by my side.”
Even when they’d slip into sibling rivalry and there’d be tension from some game they were competing in, his big brother would “come back a few minutes later and he would always be there by my side no matter what.”
Bahm’s mother, Amy, said her son’s hero was former television children’s show host Fred Rogers.
“He adored Mr. Rogers because of his patience and kindness,” Amy Bahm said.
When he dialed 911 it was because Mr. Rogers taught them to “seek the helpers” when there is trouble, she said.
“He was kind, gentle, brave and steady,” she said of her son.
She recalled how he was given an award as a camp counselor because he was known as a comforting authority figure to homesick campers. Many people told her how they considered him their best friend, she added.
The 6-foot-3 Bahm was a “gentle giant,” who “dreamed of getting a master’s degree and teaching elementary school children,” his mother said.