Local News in Brief : Caterer Sentenced for Rifle Slaying

A Canoga Park caterer who killed a man he said had been selling him cocaine was sentenced in San Fernando Superior Court Monday to 22 years to life in prison.

Jurors last month convicted James J. Sheridan, 38, of second-degree murder for the fatal shooting of Allen Irom, 35, during an argument at a Canoga Park house on June 23, 1984. Jurors also found Sheridan guilty of assault with a firearm for shooting at another man in the house. The shot missed.

Judge Robert D. Fratianne ordered Sheridan to pay, through prison work, $5,000 to a state fund for victim restitution.

Sheridan, who operated A & Y Catering in the North Hollywood area, told a probation officer that Irom moved in with him for two months in early 1984 and began encouraging Sheridan to expand his daily cocaine habit. But Deputy Dist. Atty. Meredith Rust said the two men were not on good terms when Irom moved out and rented a room in a Canoga Park house.

According to a probation report, Irom told friends several weeks after he moved out that two armed men had broken into his new home and robbed him. He blamed Sheridan for setting up the robbery, the report says.

Two days after the robbery, Sheridan, armed with a rifle, kicked down the door at Irom’s house and began arguing with him in the hallway, Rust said. In a taped confession shortly after his arrest, Sheridan admitted he shot at Irom in rage.

Sheridan testified during his trial, however, that the gun discharged accidentally when he stepped back and tripped over Irom’s dog.

The report quoted Sheridan as telling a probation officer: “I only wanted to scare him enough to make him back off and stop accusing me . . . All I wanted was to be left alone.”

He said he was high on cocaine during the incident and “did not mean to hurt anyone.”