Inset: Saam Rajaei (Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office). Background: The Palm Beach County Main Detention Center in West Palm Beach, Fla. (Google Maps).
A man from Florida has been sentenced to more than ten years in prison for the fatal shooting of his teenage friend, an act he claims was accidental due to his belief that the revolver was not loaded.
In a verdict reached in May, a jury in Palm Beach County convicted 28-year-old Saam Rajaei of manslaughter for the death of 16-year-old James Cartigiano. At the time of the tragedy, both were students at Olympic Heights High School, with Rajaei being 17 and Cartigiano 16.
Last Friday, Judge Sherri Collins of the 15th Circuit Court sentenced Rajaei to 124 1/2 months in prison, holding him accountable for the fatal incident.
The tragic event took place in January 2016 at a home on Sawpine Drive in Delray Beach, a community located about 10 miles north of Boca Raton.
On the day in question, a group of teenagers were “dry firing” a revolver, according to a report by Tequesta-based ABC affiliate WPBF.
But it turned out the weapon was loaded. At 11:10 p.m. that night, the defendant himself made a 911 call.
“I didn’t mean for this to happen,” Rajaei told the dispatcher.
In the background, another friend is heard asking what happened. To which the defendant audibly replied, “He tried to get the gun…I put my finger on the trigger accidentally and shot him.”
In the call audio, Rajaei asks yet another teenager why the gun was out on the counter if it was loaded.
The defendant later told deputies that Cartigiano picked up the gun and was “waving it around,” according to court documents obtained by West Palm Beach-based CBS affiliate WPEC.
So, Rajaei said he tried to take the gun from his friend. The defendant first said they both struggled with the gun before a single shot was fired. The two other friends were not present when the gun went off.
When deputies and paramedics arrived at the scene, Cartigiano was found on the kitchen floor unresponsive with a single gunshot wound to the head. The victim was rushed to Delray Medical Center and taken into surgery. But to little avail – he died five days later.
In a later interview, the defendant said there was no struggle, but insisted he only picked up the gun and fired by accident.
“I put my finger on the trigger accidentally and shot him,” Rajaei told one of the other teenagers there that night.
The post ‘I didn’t mean for this to happen’: Man shot and killed high school friend while he thought he was ‘dry firing’ revolver first appeared on Law & Crime.