Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Teen arrested in shooting
Friend died after sleepover incident
Nearly a year after a gunshot that killed a Boca Raton teenager at a sleepover, one of his friends faces prosecution for manslaughter.
Saam Rajaei, 18, of Boca Raton, was arrested Friday in connec- tion with the shooting death of James Cartigiano, also of Boca Raton, who at the time was a 16-year-old attending Olympic Heights High School.
Rajaei thought the gun he and others had been playing with was unloaded, until it fired a bul- let that hit Cartigiano in the head just before 11:10 p.m. Jan. 12, 2016, according to the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office.
“I didn’t mean for this to happen,” Rajaei can be heard saying in the recording of his 911 call after the shooting, the report says.
night of the shooting, Cartigiano and Rajaei were at the home of their friend Jordan Zager, now 17, in the 8200 block of Sawpine Road near Delray Beach. Alexis Tomasello, now 18, was also there, according to the Sheriff ’s Office report.
A couple hours before Cartigiano arrived that night, Rajaei and Zager had been handling a .38-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver, pulling the trigger of the
unloaded gun, the report said.
Zager later loaded the gun and moved it from his bedroom to the kitchen, according to the Sheriff’s Office. Rajaei and Tomasello told investigators that they didn’t see Zager load the revolver, the report said.
When Cartigiano arrived, he saw the gun on the kitchen counter and asked if it was real. Zager said yes and then went to the bathroom. Tomasello was upstairs asleep, according to investigators.
Investigators said Rajaei told them Cartigiano picked up the gun after Zager left the room. Rajaei said he tried to take the gun from Cartigiano and it fired when Rajaei pulled the trigger, according to the report.
Rajaei called 911. When deputies and Palm Beach County Fire Rescue arrived eight minutes later, they found Cartigiano lying on the kitchen floor and bleeding from the head, according to the report.
Cartigiano was taken to Delray Medical Center. He died five days later.
Rajaei was crying and visibly upset while being questioned by investigators the night of the shooting, the report said.
In the background of the recording of the 911 call, Rajaei can be heard saying that Cartigiano “tried to get the gun ... I put my finger on the trigger accidentally and shot him,” according to the report.
Rajaei then asked Zager, “why would that gun be loaded on the counter?” the report said.
During the investigation into Cartigiano’s death, questions surfaced about whether he was touching the gun when it fired.
A month after the shooting, investigators met with Tomasello, who told them that when deputies left that night, Rajaei said Cartigiano hadn’t touched the gun when it fired, the report said.
Also, the findings of a forensic consultant who reviewed evidence from the shooting “dispute Rajaei’s claim that he and the victim both had their hands on the gun when (it) discharged,” according to the Sheriff’s Office.
Rajaei on Monday afternoon was being held at the Palm Beach County Jail.
Cartigiano’s family in June filed a lawsuit against the shooter and the owner of the home where the shooting occurred.
The lawsuit argues that no adults were present at Jeffrey Zager’s house when the four teenagers were there and the shooting occurred.
“This is a case that arises out of (a loaded gun) being left in a house full of minors with no adult present,” said Gary Lesser, attorney for the Cartigiano family. “The type of thing that never needed to have happened.”