Jury convicts Amandeep Singh Dhami of second-degree murder of Parmjit Singh Pamma during a 2008 sporting event at a Gurdwara near Sacramento. Sentencing in the case is set for Sept. 4.
SACRAMENTO – The Punjabi-American who shot and killed his former friend at a Gurdwara sports tournament in California and then fled to Indi has been convicted of murder.
A jury deliberated for more than a week before finding Amandeep Singh Dhami guilty June 17 of second degree murder in the death of Parmjit Singh Pamma during a 2008 sporting event at a gurdwara near Sacramento, Calif.
Dhami was also convicted of attempted murder for shooting bystander Sahibjeet Singh, who was critically wounded during the fracas.
Before delivering his closing arguments in the month-long trial, Daniel Horowitz, Dhami’s defense attorney, told India-West he expected that the jury would acquit Dhami based on the killer’s testimony that he had arrived at the gurdwara that day to peacefully settle a six-month-old feud with Pamma.
In an interview shortly after his son’s death in 2008, Parshottam Singh, Pamma’s father, told India-West that Pamma and Dhami had been friends for several years.
On the witness stand in Sacramento Superior Court June 3, Dhami said he had arranged a “peace” meeting with Pamma at the gurdwara, a place of worship. He testified that he came armed with a gun and several rounds of bullets because he was unsure of how the meeting would end.
“If things didn’t go right, we wanted to make it out alive,” he said.
Dhami and his accomplice, Gurpreet Singh Gosal, had reportedly purchased their ammunition the night before the shootings at a gun shop in nearby Elk Grove, Calif. Gosal, a truck driver from Indianapolis, had flown in that day to attend the annual sports day event the following day.
In 2013, while Dhami was still on the lam, Gosal was convicted of second degree murder and of firing a weapon in the course of a murder. He is currently serving a 35-year prison term. Throughout his trial, Gosal maintained he did not know what Dhami had planned to do, even as the pair bought ammunition.
Dhami – who fled from the scene after the shootings and was a fugitive from justice for five years before his capture in Punjab last year – faces 15 years to life in prison when he is sentenced Sept. 4. He has been held in custody without bail since his arrest.
Amandeep Singh Dhami was convicted Wednesday in Sacramento Superior Court of second-degree murder and attempted murder in the killing of his rival and the wounding of another man in a fatal 2008 shooting at a Sikh temple’s sports festival near Elk Grove.
Jurors listened to a month of testimony in the trial before Judge Richard Sueyoshi, then deliberated for nearly a week before reaching their decision Wednesday afternoon. At trial, prosecutor Anthony Ortiz depicted Dhami as a violent man steeped in gang life who arrived at the outdoor sports festival on Bradshaw Road on Aug. 31, 2008. Dhami, he said, was “armed for a massacre” and ready to settle a score with rival Parmjit Pamma Singh, 26, in a long-standing feud that reignited at a San Jose nightspot.
Dhami arrived at the festival grounds just after midday with a trusted lieutenant, Gosal, flown in for the occasion, armed and carrying 250 rounds of ammunition.
The prosecution and defense varied in their versions of what happened, but, minutes after the pair arrived, Singh was shot dead on the festival’s cricket grounds, and his confidant, Sahibjeet Singh, was wounded but alive.
In Sacramento and while a fugitive in India, Dhami boasted in rap lyrics and Facebook posts presented at trial using the moniker “Mista Killafornia” that dramatized the shooting in rhyme, proclaiming that halfway around the world he was “still keepin it gangsta.”
Dhami defense counsel Daniel Horowitz argued that Dhami and Gosal agreed to meet with Singh at the festival – neutral ground for a peace meeting where, Dhami testified, “two gangsters could work things out” – but were armed to protect themselves from a possible ambush by an armed Singh and his crew. On Wednesday, a visibly anxious Dhami awaited the jury’s decision, family members in attendance as they had been throughout the trial.
After Wednesday’s verdict before Judge Russell L. Hom, sitting in for Sueyoshi, Horowitz praised jurors as “extremely dedicated and fair” but said the trial should have ended with Dhami’s acquittal.
“The jury understood there was provocation on the other side. They must’ve realized that Dhami was there for a peace meeting,” Horowitz said.
Horowitz said he plans to file a motion for a new trial.
Sentencing in the case is set for Sept. 4 before Judge Sueyoshi.
