Man behind shooting in Surrey gets 14 years

A man who was convicted in the deadly shooting of a Surrey man during a home invasion has been sentenced to 14 years in prison.

In May 2015, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Bruce Butler found Russell Bidesi, 26, guilty of the February 2012 manslaughter of Kacey Rogers, 31. The accused had initially been charged with second-degree murder.

Rogers and his girlfriend, who cannot be identified due to a publication ban, were getting ready for bed in their home on Grosvenor Road when four shotgun blasts were fired through their front door.

As he looked out of a kitchen window at the front of the home, Rogers was killed by another shotgun blast fired at close range.

Three men, one of whom was Bidesi, burst into the residence and confronted the girlfriend, before taking a small amount of money and fleeing.

In convicting Bidesi, the judge found that he had recruited associates Joshua Martinez and Fabian Lyde to help him.

Martinez and Lyde earlier pleaded guilty to manslaughter. Martinez got seven years. Lyde received a six-year prison term.

The judge said he was unable to determine who fired the fatal shot but concluded that Bidesi may have been the shooter.

Bidesi apologized to the Rogers family and said he had taken responsibility for the shooting, but the judge said he had difficulty reconciling his expressions of remorse with his problems in custody, which include a number of assaults on other inmates.

The accused’s prior offences include a conviction for attempting to commit bodily harm after shooting another man in the face in Richmond in November 2011.

He has also been charged with the second-degree murder of Bradley McPherson, 28, in 2011. That trial is expected to get underway in September in B.C. Supreme Court.

The judge gave Bidesi 14 years, but reduced it to eight years, 10½ months after credit for pre-sentence custody.

Bidesi’s sentence will run consecutive to his 30-month sentence for the Richmond shooting and a six-month term for assaulting an inmate.