U.S. JUDGE ADOPTED THE PLEA AGREEMENT WHICH CALLED FOR THE PRISON TERM AND DEPORTATION TO CROATIA
Photo: 7Dnevno
A Parma Heights sausage-maker who admitted to lying about war crimes charges during the Croatian War to gain entrance to the United States was sentenced on Tuesday to three years in prison.
U.S. District Judge David Ruiz adopted the plea agreement, which called for the prison term and deportation to Croatia, where Vidic faces a 20-year prison sentence.
Croatian authorities convicted Vidic in 1998 in a trial that was held without his presence. That country’s supreme court upheld the conviction. Ruiz said during the hearing that Vidic would have an opportunity in Croatia to revisit the charges.
Defense attorney Daniel Misiewicz said during the hearing that his client built a life as a locally renowned sausage-maker, a devout member of his church and a dedicated father of two. He pointed to the more than two dozen supporters that showed up for the hearing.
“This is an extremely sad and difficult day,” Misiewicz said. “He’ll face the ultimate punishment of being deported after he built a life here.”
Vidic admitted that he knew he was charged with a war crime in Croatia when he submitted paperwork to enter the United States as a refugee and to obtain permanent citizenship. He denied that he committed the 1991 slaying of Stjepan Komes during a siege on the Gavrilovic meat-processing plant in Petrinja.
Croatian authorities say Vidic was part of the Yugoslavian People’s Army’s special operations branch called the Red Berets when he singled out Komes for shaking the Croatian president’s hand during a media event.
Vidic, an ethnic Serbian, chopped off Komes’ arm near his elbow and let him bleed to death, according to Croatian court records. Komes was an ethnic Croatian. Komes’ body was found in a mass grave more than a year later. He was one of some 20,000 people killed during the war that lasted from 1991 to 1995 and ended with Croatia’s independence.
Vidic immigrated to the United States in 1999 and lived the last 25 years in Cleveland’s western suburbs. He worked as a butcher at area grocery stores, including Dave’s Supermarket, where he was accused of sexually harassing several employees. Dave’s paid a $300,000 settlement after the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued the supermarket over the accusations.
Vidic also ran his own sausage shop called Jugo’s Meats. He was cited in 2019 for selling hundreds of pounds of uninspected meats and later for selling meat without a license.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Shepherd said even though Vidic’s crime here— lying on his green card application— is a technical one, it belied a more serious offense. “He lied about important things, including causing real harm to real victims in Croatia,” Shepherd said.
