Pubdate: Mon, 06 Mar 2006
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Section: Pg B01
Copyright: 2006 The Washington Post Company
Contact:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491
Author: Ernesto Londono, Staff Writer

MARIJUANA SCAM'S DEADLY OUTCOME LEAVES MD. FAMILY ANGUISHED

Edward R. Thomas wanted a dirt bike.

Badly.

Badly enough to kill, Montgomery County prosecutors convinced a jury 
last week. It found him guilty of first-degree murder in the July 17 
slaying of a Rockville teenager who seemed ripe for ripping off.

"When I think my son died for someone to get a dirt bike," said Maria 
Solaun, the victim's mother, "that's horrible."

Bijan M. Nassirdaftari, 17, was one of three young Montgomery males 
killed last year in drug swindles, according to police.

On Dec. 27, Stephen W. Kelly, 20, of Gaithersburg, was fatally shot 
in Germantown while allegedly trying to buy drugs from a man who 
authorities said had been looking for a "white boy" to rob.

In June, before Nassirdaftari's slaying, Ezekiel Babendreier, 18, a 
recent Damascus High School graduate, was stabbed multiple times 
after a fighting with three men in Germantown from whom he tried to 
buy drugs, police said.

Suspects are charged in both cases.

In Nassirdaftari's case, the motive was petty, the consequences crushing.

"We didn't think it was a big deal. We were having fun," said Aubrie 
St. Clair, 18, Nassirdaftari's girlfriend, who was with him the night 
he went to Bethesda to meet three teenagers who had offered to sell 
him marijuana. "We wanted this to be the best summer of our lives, 
and we didn't think about any consequences."

The last day of Nassirdaftari's life was otherwise ordinary. He 
returned home after working in the morning at Manhattan Bagel on 
Rockville Pike. St. Clair was at his home, as she had been almost 
every other day since the two began dating in January 2005.

He swapped calls and text messages on his cell phone with Michael J. 
Manaugh, 18, of Silver Spring, a youth he met playing ball at a park, 
a guy who shared his affinity for pot, the man who introduced 
Nassirdaftari to his killer, according to court testimony.

Nassirdaftari was going to buy a pound.

He was no stranger to drugs. This became apparent to his parents 
during his sophomore year at Gonzaga College High School, a Jesuit 
high school in the District that constituted a significant financial 
sacrifice for his parents, immigrants from Iran and Cuba.

He had been grounded, sent to rehab programs, screamed at, embraced.

Once, on April 28, 2004, Solaun called the police when she discovered 
Nassirdaftari lowering a small bag of marijuana with a fishing line 
from his bedroom window in their spacious, two-story Rockville home.

"We were proactive; we fought hard," Solaun said. "That's what's been 
so painful."

Nassirdaftari was supposed to go to the University of Maryland in 
College Park for orientation the morning after he died. He was 
starting college in the fall as a criminal justice major, in all 
likelihood. A good, humble, conscientious kid who made a stupid 
mistake, loved ones would repeat after his death.

On his bed, Nassirdaftari left a small suitcase packed with clothes 
for the two nights he expected to stay in College Park.

"Mommy, going out for a little bit," Solaun remembers him saying as 
he left that night. "Won't be too long."

"I love you Bij," she says she replied, adding, as she always did, 
"Be a man of God."

Nassirdaftari, St. Clair and two friends drove to Bethesda where they 
met with Manaugh, Thomas, 20, and Thomas's girlfriend, Ardele J. Monkkonen, 19.

Thomas desperately wanted money to replace his dirt bike, which had 
recently been stolen, prosecutors said. He was unemployed and living 
with Monkkonen in an efficiency in the District.

"I know someone you can rob," Manaugh testified he told Thomas. "It 
should be pretty easy."

The trio, who prosecutors said had no marijuana on them, asked 
Nassirdaftari to get in their car to seal the deal.

Minutes later, at Alta Vista Terrace and Alta Vista Road, Thomas, 
sitting in the back seat next to Nassirdaftari, pulled out a gun. The 
unexpected happened: Nassirdaftari fought back. A bruising fight in 
the back seat of the car followed. Later, Thomas told his girlfriend 
that he needed to brush his teeth because he had Nassirdaftari's skin 
in his mouth from biting him, prosecutors said.

Nassirdaftari fled without giving up the $3,100 in his pocket. Thomas 
ran after him, pointed a gun and fired a single shot into his head, 
prosecutors said. Nassirdaftari fell on the pavement. Thomas raced 
toward the body, slipped his hand into the pocket of Nassirdaftari's 
plaid shorts and ran away with the money.

Solaun and her husband walked into the Montgomery County Circuit 
courtroom at the beginning of the four-day trial skeptical of the 
jury system. At times, they stepped out, overwhelmed by the graphic 
nature of some of the evidence.

"I felt like I was reliving that night," said Saied Nassirdaftari, 
47. "It was very vivid. From the 911 call to the testimony. I 
couldn't stand the [medical examiner's] report."

They left court after the verdict Thursday in tears, feeling 
vindicated and grateful to prosecutors who, Solaun said, treated her 
son as a human being, "not just another body at the morgue." Thomas 
could face life in prison.

But the family's healing is just beginning.

"This Christmas, we couldn't eat at home," said Solaun, who has two 
teenage daughters. "We were the only Christian family at the Chinese 
restaurant."

Manaugh and Monkkonen spent the last few days of their free life 
panicking, prosecutors said. They made up a story incriminating a 
so-called Jeffrey. It fell through in a police interrogation room, 
and they both were charged with murder. Each pleaded guilty to lesser 
charges and will spend at least a few years in prison.

Thomas's attorneys tried unsuccessfully to convince the jury that 
Manaugh had masterminded the robbery and therefore was responsible 
for the slaying.

Just hours after the shooting, according to a receipt police later 
found, Thomas bought a new dirt bike.
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman