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Man gets five years prison for firebombing Bedford home of business rival

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Man gets five years prison for firebombing Bedford home of business rival

A New Jersey man who planned the firebombing of a business rival’s home in Bedford has been sentenced to five years in federal prison.

The prison term U.S. District Judge Cathy Seibel gave Damjan Stanivukovic last month was longer than the 3- to 4-year guideline sentence requested by prosecutors. He was also fined $25,000.

The detonation of an improvised explosive device in the driveway of a McLain Street home early this year followed repeated threats by Stanivukovic. He’d been in a protracted legal battle with the owner of the house, who was his former business associate.

Before dawn on Jan. 11, Stanivukovic left his home in Closter, New Jersey, with Vladimir Radunovic and drove to the rival’s home in Bedford. Radunovic got out and video showed him placing a flaming box in the driveway before the two drove off. The box later exploded but damage was limited and nobody was hurt.

It wasn’t hard for police to track down Stanivukovic. His name and address were on the shipping label of a box that contained the exploding device, a gas can with firework tubing.

Both men pleaded guilty to unlawful possession of a destructive device and conspiracy to commit stalking. Radunovic was sentenced in September to 2 2/3 years in federal prison.

Stanivukovic was the defendant in a civil lawsuit by the homeowner in New Jersey. Stanivukovic arranged for someone to hand-deliver a note to the plaintiff in October 2023 warning him not to attend a court hearing in the case. The note included the words “Better for everybody.” The plaintiff did go to the court hearing.

Hours after the bomb went off, as the homeowner was speaking to law enforcement, he received a text from someone associated with Stanivokovic: “Knock knock ,show up and what do you think is next. This is your final warning.”

Stanivukovic had opioid addiction, his lawyer said

In a sentencing memo, defense lawyer Edward Sapone said there was no excuse for Stanivukovic’s “outrageous behavior,” but said that at the time of the crime Stanivukovic “was in the darkest, lowest place in his life….smothered by the suffocating grip of opioid addiction.”

The lawyer attributed the substance abuse to the death of Stanivukovic’s mother, his divorce, trying to support a teenage daughter alone while facing a potential multi-million judgement, and the imminent collapse of his heating and air conditioning business.

Sapone asked Seibel to spare Stanivukovic a prison term, arguing the nine months he spent at the Westchester County jail following his arrest was sufficient incarceration. He asked for a time-served sentence that would include six months home confinement and substance abuse and mental health treatment.

But prosecutors Michael Lockard and Kate Wheelock, in asking for the guideline sentence, said Stanivukovic had shown an escalating pattern of threats and the bomb could have seriously injured people, including the owner’s child who waited in that spot for the school bus.

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