Crime & Safety

Member of Sanfilippo Pizza Family Charged With Assault on Officer

Delina Sanfilippo could face a five-year prison term. She's accused of waving a knife in front of a police officer investigating a car collision.

A member of a longtime La Mesa pizza family faces charges of assault with a deadly weapon on a peace officer in an incident that grew out of a June 7 car crash, authorities said.

Delina Denine Sanfilippo—who heads the wait staff at Sanfilippo’s Pizza restaurant on La Mesa Boulevard—was booked at Las Colinas women’s jail in Santee and posted $50,000 bail after her arrest in the incident, according to Steve Walker, a spokesman for the county District Attorney’s Office.

She pleaded not guilty in her June 9 arraignment, he said.

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Walker said Sanfilippo, 41, has a readiness conference set June 30 and a preliminary hearing July 13—both in East County Superior Court in El Cajon. The preliminary hearing will determine if evidence exists to send her to trial.

Her case (CE311810) has been assigned to Deputy District Attorney Andrew Aquilar, who said Sanfilippo could face a maximum sentence of five years in prison if convicted of the first charge involving an officer.

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A second charge of simple assault with a deadly weapon could net a four-year term, he said, but since they involve the same incident the terms would be concurrent.

Sanfilippo had been involved in a car collision, said police Lt. Dan Willis of the La Mesa Police Department. Incident reports indicate the crash was around 10:46 a.m. in the 7600 block of Alvarado Road, a frontage road next to the San Diego RV Resort.

“Ms. Sanfilippo was one of the parties involved,” Willis said Friday.  “She reportedly had a knife in her possession and was allegedly waving it around, though no one specifically was threatened or harmed in any way.”

“She was booked into Las Colinas [jail]. … We got a call because of the original collision.”

Prosecutor Aguilar, who has been with the DA’s Office since January 2008, said La Mesa Officer Matthew Gay is on record as being the “victim” in the incident.

Tuesday afternoon, police Lt. David Bond noted the danger inherent in such situations: “If someone held a knife out at an officer, that could be considered a shooting situation. We never want anyone to take out a weapon in the area of an officer.”

Bond noted: “A knife in the vicinity of an officer can quickly turn into a stabbing”—which can result in deadly force.

Delina Sanfilippo and her sister Dora Sanfilippo-Calcutt, who manages the restaurant with her husband, Bill, are daughters of Anna Sanfilippo.

Anna Sanfilippo returned a La Mesa Patch phone call at 5:20 p.m. Tuesday and said she wanted no news about her daughter published, saying the family is having a hard time with the situation.

A La Mesa institution founded in 1975 by Anna and Don Sanfilippo, the pizzeria boasts decades of honorary plaques, local business awards and car-show memorabilia. The La Mesa police dubbed the restaurant a “Guardian Angel” in 2003.

In late January, taken at a Village merchants association meeting at the pizza restaurant showed a woman later identified as Delina Sanfilippo glaring at bookstore owner Craig Maxwell and Councilman Ernie Ewin during an altercation.

Delina is heard shouting: “Hey! Hey! Don’t be grabbing people in my place! If you want to be disrespectful, get out. Get out of my restaurant! I don’t want no violence in here! Go!”

Updated at 10 p.m. June 14, 2011.


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