Man gets 60 years in attempted murder case

Katherine Ranta wanted the man who tried to kill her in 2012 to get a life sentence Friday.

He didn’t, but Ranta said she was content with the sentence that was handed down — 60 years in prison for Thomas Maffei’s attempt to murder her, and 60 years in prison for his attempt to murder her father.

Each sentence comes with a 25-year minimum mandatory prison term, which means Maffei won’t have a chance to start earning credit for early release for 50 years.

Maffei, Ranta’s estranged husband at the time of the shooting, is 49. The divorce later became final.

Friday’s hearing before Broward Circuit Judge Raag Singhal focused largely on the Nov. 2, 2012, attack.

Ranta and her father described how Maffei was seen outside her Coral Springs apartment, uninvited, and tried to barge in. Ranta and her father leaned against the front door. Standing next to her was her 4-year-old son, confused by what was unfolding before him, Ranta said.

Shots were fired through the door, Ranta said. “This guy had no idea where those bullets were going to go,” she said. “He knew his son was in the room. Who does that?”

Maffei made his way into the apartment. He aimed his gun at his estranged wife. When she held her hand up to stop him, she said, he shot it. Their son, she recalled, was crying out, “Don’t do it, Daddy. Don’t shoot mommy.”

Maffei then walked to Ranta’s father and shot him.

“His eyes were clear and his demeanor was determined,” Ranta said, rebutting defense arguments that Maffei was

under the influence of prescription drugs that impaired his judgment at the time of the shooting. “It was not drugs. It was not PTSD. Unacceptable.”

For a brief time, father and daughter each believed the other to be dead.

Both said the little boy, now 8, suffers from post traumatic stress disorder, terrified that he could turn into a “monster.”

Ranta read a letter from her son asking the judge for a life sentence.

“I think Tom should stay in jail forever because he is a bad man,” the little boy wrote. Maffei’s parental rights were revoked, and the child now uses his mother’s last name.

Maffei, a retired U.S. Air Force major who served in the military for 22 years, did not speak during Friday’s hearing. His lawyer, Fred Haddad, has indicated that he will appeal the conviction.

During the trial, Haddad argued that Maffei should not be convicted of attempted murder because had he wanted to kill Ranta and her father, he would have. Police did not arrive until after Ranta and her father made their way out of the apartment with the young boy.

But prosecutors Whitney Mackay and Molly McGuire said the location of the shots — at the center of the front door — demonstrated Maffei was trying to kill the victims, not just hurt them or scare them.

Maffei had no reaction when Singhal imposed the sentence.

RAFAEL OLMEDA/STAFF