After eight years, a man accused of shooting a Santa Monica resident in their own home has been convicted. Following a lengthy investigation, Vacho Shahen (39) of Las Vegas, was found guilty of 16 of the total 17 charges brought up against him following an interrupted home invasion and subsequent shooting in 2016.
Early on the morning of Sunday, August 28, 2016 at approximately 6:21am, a homeowner on the 600 block of Adelaide Drive interrupted a suspected robbery and was shot once in the torso. The suspect fled and the victim was transported to UCLA hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
Lieutenant Saul Rodriguez of the Santa Monica Police Department (SMPD) said at the time that the only description of the suspect was a man, in dark clothing, wearing a mask similar to the one used in the movie Scream.
Detectives collected DNA evidence after the break-in but didn’t make any connections until Shahen was arrested and incarcerated in Philadelphia in 2017 for an alleged debit-card scam that used sophisticated skimmers to steal personal information. In July of 2018, it was announced that officers from the SMPD had traveled to Pennsylvania to interview Shahen in Federal Prison before officially filing the charges related to the California crimes.
The investigation linked the Adelaide Drive incident to additional home invasions in Beverly Hills and Downey. All four incidents occurred within a two-week period in 2016.
According to SMPD, Shahen was convicted by a jury on 16 of 17 counts, made up of the following:
• 4 counts of 1st degree residential burglary (Downey, Beverly Hills, Santa Monica)
• 4 counts of residential robbery (Downey, Beverly Hills)
• 5 counts of false imprisonment (Downey, Beverly Hills)
• 2 counts of assault with a firearm (Santa Monica)
• 1 count assault with a firearm causing great bodily injury (Santa Monica)
(Reduced from attempted murder because the jury felt there was not enough proof the suspect intended to kill him.)
He was found not guilty of one count of robbery in the Downey incident because the victim did not testify in court and it could not be proven something was stolen from him.
"I was the originally assigned lead detective in this case in 2016. We [SMPD] had identified a possible suspect by DNA from evidence left at the scene. However, the DNA was unidentified and not in the state database," Sergeant Chad Goodwin of the SMPD told the Daily Press, adding, "We only knew it was an unknown male. It was not until 2018, I was contacted by a detective from Downey PD who also had the same unidentified male DNA profile from his two incidents that we realized they were related."
Shahen was convicted on federal charges in Pennsylvania and began to serve his sentence. He was extradited to Los Angeles in 2021 and arraigned on our cases where he remained in custody up until May 2024. He was convicted by the jury after a three week trial.
"Needless to say, this was an unusually long and drawn out case over an eight year period. Many of the victims, witnesses, officers, detectives and forensic technicians had relocated or retired," Goodwin said.
"But in the end, everyone came together and saw the case through. The victims finally have a sense of closure and feel they can move on and put this horror behind them even though many of them told me they will never be the same. It’s a great feeling to see the culmination of a lot of work by law enforcement and the DA’s office to make sure this suspect was held responsible for his actions and convicted for these crimes."
