RIA employee was sane in 2022 when he committed double murder, jury rules

A former employee of a large registered investment advisor in Orange County, Calif., pleaded guilty in April to two special circumstances murders and last week a jury found that Ramy Hany Mounir Fahim was sane when he attacked and killed two men in April 2022.

As a result, Fahim, 30, will be sentenced to two consecutive sentences of life in prison without the possibility of parole, according to a statement last Thursday from the Orange County District Attorney’s office.

The jury ruled that Fahim was sane when he ambushed his co-worker, Griffin Cuomo, at his Anaheim apartment and stabbed him to death and then pushed through the bathroom door and repeatedly stabbed his co-worker’s roommate, Johnathan Bahm, who was on the phone with 911 calling for help, killing him, according to a statement from the Orange County District Attorney’s office.

Both Cuomo and Bahm were 23 at the time.

Fahim and Cuomo worked together at Pence Wealth Management, an Orange County RIA with more than $1 billion in client assets and an affiliate of LPL Financial. Fahim was a research associate and Cuomo was a marketing and media assistant.

“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,” said Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer, in the statement.

“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,” Spitzer said.

Fahim had also previously entered a not guilty by reason of insanity plea which necessitated the trial to determine whether he was legally insane at the time he committed the murders, according to the Orange County District Attorney.

“A building security guard had encountered Fahim on the apartment complex’ roof at midnight on April 18, 2022, just hours before the murders,” according to the Orange County District Attorney. “Fahim was seen on the same floor of the victims’ apartment the morning of the murders.”

“On April 19, 2022, Anaheim police responded to a 911 call reporting an assault at Stadium House apartments… around 6:50 a.m.,” according to the Orange County District Attorney. “Fahim was still inside the victims’ apartment when Anaheim police responded to the 911 call. Cuomo and Bahm were pronounced dead at the scene, and Fahim was hospitalized with minor injuries before being arrested on suspicion of murder.”