A Vancouver man was sentenced Friday to 15½ years in prison for the severe bludgeoning of his two elderly parents in November 2015.
Romeen Sabahi, 48, was convicted of two counts of first-degree assault following a jury trial last month in Clark County Superior Court. The charges included aggravating circumstances; the victims are considered vulnerable because their age did not allow them to defend themselves.
On Nov. 28, 2015, Vancouver police responded to a home near Old Evergreen Highway, where Romeen Sabahi lived with his parents, Minou and Ahmad Sabahi, according to court records. Police reported that Romeen Sabahi threw hundreds of punches and even used a kettle bell to beat his father and mother, who were 87 and 88 years old, respectively, at the time, court documents said. The audio of the assault was recorded in 911 calls.
The attorneys representing both sides disagreed on various facts in the case during their arguments for the sentence that Sabahi should receive.
Abbie Bartlett, senior deputy prosecuting attorney in the Elder Justice Center, said that Sabahi should serve the higher end of the sentencing range for the crime, which is 20½ years.
“The beatings continued for upwards of 10 minutes, the beatings moved from room to room, his parents were on the ground and they continued to be beaten,” she said. “This was an incredibly brutal and long-lasting assault. This wasn’t a momentary lapse in judgment, one punch that went wrong.”
Both parents were immobilized when they were found by police and were later found to each have suffered a fractured pelvis and multiple contusions, according to court documents. Ahmad Sabahi suffered several broken ribs and Minou Sabahi required a blood transfusion, Bartlett said.
“He first attacked his father and when his mother tried to intervene, he turned on her and attacked her,” she said. “There is no evidence that the defendant intended to stop … He’d believed he’d successfully killed his father.”
Romeen Sabahi’s defense attorney, Tonya Rulli, argued that her client should not be held criminally liable because he has a diminished mental capacity, something she said was proven in the trial’s testimony.
Rulli said that when the incident was first reported, the victims were speaking Farsi and so it was incorrectly asserted that Sabahi used a kettle bell against his parents.
“It got picked up and passed on like a horrible game of telephone,” she said.
Rulli argued for a lighter sentence of five years because of the confusion and because that is what the victims wanted.
When the defendant’s mother and father took their turn to speak at the hearing, they described their son as a nice boy who helps around the house. They asked Judge Robert Lewis for leniency.
“That night, he was not himself,” Minou Sabahi said.
Rulli said that the lighter sentence that Romeen Sabahi’s parents wanted should be taken into consideration.
“It’s frustrating for them to not be heard by this system,” Rulli said. After the hearing, she described the judge’s decision as a travesty and said she plans to appeal the conviction.
When it was Romeen Sabahi’s chance to address the judge, he explained that he had been grieving the death of his fiancé when he took medication in an attempt to kill himself.
He said that instead, the pills made him act out against his parents.
“I’m so deeply sorry for what I have done. The only person I intended to harm was myself,” he said. “I truly have no memory of that night … I would never knowingly harm my family.”
Sabahi said that because of his parents’ age and failing health that he would likely never have the chance to repair the relationship.
“This sickens me more than any punishment the court sees fit to impose on me,” he said.
