Nirmal Sehmbey of California was upset with his niece’s marriage.
By Deepak Chitnis
WASHINGTON, DC: An Indian American man in Bakersfield, California, has been sentenced to three years behind bars for hiring a man to assault his niece’s husband.
Nirmal Sehmbey, a Sikh man who was well-respected by the local community, paid Jorge Negrete $1,000 to attack a man named Manjit Singh. Singh was married to Sehmbey’s niece, and was set to arrive at the local Sikh gurudwara on February 20, 2011, when Negrete attacked him.
Sehmbey was reportedly agitated over his niece marrying Singh, who Sehmbey believed to be beneath her social standing.
Sehmbev faced charges of conspiracy to commit robbery and conspiracy to commit assault with force likely to cause great bodily injury, and was convicted on both count on February 10 of this year. Negrete and another man, Jose Macias, cut plea deals with the prosecution, testifying that Sehmbey hired them to carry out the attack at the South P Street Sikh temple.
Sehmbey was arrested on October 13, according to an arrest log by the Bakersfield Californian. He will already have 65 days of the sentence credited to him, which leaves him about 34 months left to serve. The maximum sentence he faced for the charges was five years, but the judge only gave him three.
Prosecutors contended during the trial that Sehmbey thought he could use his good standing in the community to distance himself from the attack, and ultimately escape jail time. In handing down the sentence, prosecutors applauded the judge for “emphatically” denying that notion.
“[Sehmbey’s] always thought that, because of his standing in the community and because of his economic success in this country, he was basically going to get away with inflicting this kind of violence,” one of the prosecutors told local ABC affiliate KERO-23.
Negrete is currently serving a jail term for his involvement in the attack.
To contact the author, email to deepakchitnis@americanbazaaronline.com