Gunman who shot Pa. trucker sentenced to 5-10 years in prison

Gambashidze

A gunman who shot a trucker following a dispute at a Pennsylvania trucking company will serve 5-10 years in a state prison.

Judge Gary B. Gilman­­­­­­ sentenced Zurab Gambashidze Oct. 4 in Bucks County Common Pleas Court. The 30-year-old Philadelphia resident told Bensalem Township police he shot Giorgi Chuguashvili once in the chest outside Philadelphia Express Group. The 47-year-old driver was critically injured but has since recovered.

Police said Gambashidze’s friend, Giorgi Kalandadze, was a dispatcher for the Bensalem motor carrier. On Jan. 26, Kalandadze and Chuguashvili got into a physical altercation during an argument over the trucker’s driving assignments. The dispatcher left work, but returned that day after recruiting Gambashidze and two other friends to confront Chuguashvili.

Gambashidze said Chuguashvili attacked him with a towing chain in the company’s parking lot. The Georgian national shot the PEG driver with a borrowed 9 mm gun before fleeing by car with his accomplices.

Gambashidze was prohibited from having a gun because of a 2013 robbery conviction in Philadelphia. Gilman accepted a plea negotiation where Gambashidze would serve 5-10 years on the felony count of illegally possessing a firearm.

Kalandadze and the two other defendants will go on trial Oct. 18.