TODAYS "MADD RAPPER" 3/26/08 VERSION

Rapper 'Grim Reefer' gets prison after accomplice's death in Roseville attack
By Art Campos - acampos@sacbee.com

Published 12:00 am PDT Wednesday, March 26, 2008Story appeared in METRO section, Page B5

Paying for his role in the death of an accomplice, a Roseville rapper known as the "Grim Reefer" has been sent to state prison by a Placer County judge.

The 26-year-old rapper, whose real name is John Donato Ruffner, landed behind bars after an accomplice was fatally stabbed during a botched plan to harm another Roseville man.

The stabbing occurred when the accomplice, Ruffner and a third man broke into a resident's home Jan. 24, 2007.

The resident, armed with a knife, stabbed Christopher Gregory, 25, who was hitting him with a baseball bat.

The resident was not charged because he acted in self-defense, Roseville police said.
Under California law, however, a person engaged in an inherently dangerous crime can be charged with homicide if anyone, including a colleague, is killed.

Prosecutors charged Ruffner with second-degree murder. The third man was never caught.
Ruffner later pleaded no contest to a lesser count of voluntary manslaughter and to burglary.
Superior Court Judge Robert P. McElhany last month sentenced Ruffner to 12 years and four months in prison.

Had he been convicted of second-degree murder, Ruffner could have faced 15 years to life.
Supervising District Attorney Clifford Gessner said detectives learned the attack on the victim may have been over a drug debt.

Ruffner's attorney, Barry Zimmerman, acknowledged his client and two friends went to the victim's home to "beat up and scare" him but said there was no intent to kill.
"It's a sad situation," he said. "Here you have one guy going to prison for a death produced by another guy who was not without his own history."

When the victim stabbed Gregory, the attackers, including Gregory, fled in a vehicle.
They drove to a gas station on Watt Avenue in Sacramento County, called 911 from a pay phone and then Ruffner "callously abandoned" the dying Gregory on the ground in the parking lot, Gessner said.

Gregory was taken by ambulance to a Sacramento hospital and was pronounced dead, the prosecutor said.

Zimmerman said Ruffner, despite previous scrapes with law enforcement, was a decent guy who tried to get help for his dying friend at the gas station.

"Of course (Ruffner) didn't want to stay there," the attorney said. "He'd just been in a home invasion and didn't want to get arrested."