ST. LOUIS – A man who admitted shooting a co-worker in 2021 at a beloved Italian restaurant on The Hill was sentenced Wednesday to federal prison while he awaits local charges.
Prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Missouri said the shooting took place on the evening of Sept. 18, 2021, at Rigazzi’s. St. Louis police arrived to find a man inside the business suffering from a gunshot wound. Investigators learned two men, both employees at the restaurant, got into an argument prior to the shooting.
The defendant, Philandias Calvin, was arrested on Sept. 28. Police found a .380-caliber Hi-Point pistol and three loaded magazines in Calvin’s possession at the time of his arrest.
Police and prosecutors said Calvin confessed to the shooting and also admitted that he shouldn’t have had the gun because he was a convicted felon.
Calvin, 37, pleaded guilty in April 2022 to one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm.
A U.S. District Court judge sentenced Calvin to 8 ½ years in prison. The judge said her sentence was based in part on a “quite disturbing” number of criminal offenses on Calvin’s part over the last 10 years.
The Rigazzi’s shooting happened just five months after Calvin’s term of supervised release ended for assaulting U.S. Deputy Marshals and a probation officer in the federal courthouse in Downtown St. Louis. He had been arrested at the time for violating supervised release in a separate federal gun case and an escape case.
Calvin still faces charges in St. Louis Circuit Court for first-degree assault, armed criminal action, and unlawful use of a weapon in connection with the shooting.
