A 20-year-old man who is facing a manslaughter charge in a 2021 shooting death in Rutland was sentenced this week to 30 months in prison on a federal firearms charge.
Kahliq Richardson, formerly of Rutland County, was sentenced Monday in U.S. District Court in Burlington to the 30-month term for possessing a firearm while being an unlawful user of controlled substances, according to court records. Richardson had pleaded guilty to the charge in March 2022.
Judge William K. Sessions III also ordered him to spend three years on supervised release after his prison sentence, court records stated.
Richardson was at the Quality Inn in Rutland on April 3, 2021, when he is alleged to have shot 19-year-old Jonah Pandiani in the head, killing him instantly.
According to federal prosecutors, the homicide investigation revealed Richardson had a history of drug use and had been using crack cocaine in the hours leading up to the shooting.
The investigation into Pandiani’s death led to the federal firearms charge, in addition to a charge of voluntary manslaughter, which remains pending in Rutland County Superior criminal court.
Court records stated that one witness described Richardson as “showboating” with a firearm in the motel room when the fatal shooting took place, with several people there.
Pandiani was seated in a chair, with his back turned, when Richardson came up behind him and put the gun to Pandiani’s neck and then to his head, according to court records. The gun went off and the bullet traveled from the center-left of the crown of Pandiani’s head steeply downward into his neck, where it lodged in his throat, court records stated.
“On these facts,” prosecutors wrote, “it is not plausible that the gun went off ‘accidentally’ as the defendant claims.” Instead, the prosecutors said, “at the very least, the defendant’s conduct was grossly reckless, and he displayed an obvious lack of concern for human life.”
Richardson has pleaded not guilty to the voluntary manslaughter charge.
