A felony charge of insurance fraud has been filed against the owner of the embattled Rad gun range on the outskirts of Burlington – and then dismissed a week later.
A month after fire destroyed the gun range on March 2, Rudolph (“Rudy”) Anthony Cartassi, 45, white, male, of 207 East Dillard Street, Mebane, was served with an arrest warrant by the Alamance County sheriff’s office on April 8. He was charged with one felony count of insurance fraud equal to or greater than $100,000, according to documents filed in Alamance County superior court.
The warrant alleged that Cartassi, “with the intent to defraud an insurer,” knowingly filed a false claim for payment on 10 firearms that he apparently said had been destroyed when the gun range burned to the ground in March. The guns had been insured by the Cincinnati Insurance Company, court files show.
See earlier story on fire that destroyed Rad Gun Range: https://alamancenews.com/early-sun-morning-fire-destroys-much-criticized-shooting-range-near-burlington/
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Cartassi had told an agent with the state insurance department that “no firearms were located in the structure” after the shooting range at 1246 Barnwell Road in Burlington burned to the ground shortly after midnight on Sunday, March 2, according to the arrest warrant.
Cartassi told The Alamance News at the time that he and his wife were in Danville, Virginia when the blaze consumed the gun range.
“I was at Danville, Virginia at a casino with my wife, trying to relax because I was scheduled to be in court today,” Cartassi said in the interview on March 3. “Somebody did this,” he added, “and you can throw a stone out there and hit someone who hates me.”
Cartassi was released on a $10,000 secured bond, posted by Palmetto Surety Corporation of South Carolina, several hours after he was served with the arrest warrant on April 8. He was scheduled to make his first appearance in Alamance County criminal superior court on Wednesday, April 9.
The insurance fraud charge was voluntarily dismissed by a special prosecutor last Tuesday, April 15, due to “insufficient evidence to warrant prosecution,” according to the court file.
“Per Special Prosecutor, Jordan Green, due to newly discovered information, this case should be dismissed in the interest of justice,” the notice of dismissal stated.
Alamance County sheriff’s spokesman Byron Tucker said at the time that the circumstances surrounding the fire at Rad Range had prompted the State Bureau of Investigation and state Fire Marshal’s office to launch separate investigations.
The case remains under investigation, Barry Smith, deputy director of communications for the DOI, confirmed late last week for The Alamance News.
Cartassi’s gun range had been a source of ongoing controversy since he purchased the property that would become Rad Range’s HQ in the fall of 2021.
A number of the gun range’s neighbors subsequently appealed to Alamance County’s commissioners to adopt regulations that would address noise complaints and stop errant gunfire that several neighbors claimed had crossed onto their property. The commissioners ultimately chose not to adopt a proposed ordinance developed by the county’s legal department amid concerted pressure from Cartassi and the owners of other local gun ranges.
Meanwhile, a hearing in a pending civil suit – which Cartassi alluded to in the earlier interview – was scheduled in Alamance County superior court for the week of March 6.
Filed in November 2023 by two of the range’s neighbors, Howard and Patricia Dunn of 2077 Jim Barnwell Road, Burlington, the suit alleged that it was common knowledge that “bullets regularly leave” the 23.6-acre gun range property and cross onto neighbors’ properties in a long-established residential area.
The Dunns claimed that activities at the gun range – outdoor pistol and rifle shooting practice, individual handgun training, concealed carry classes, and operation of a pub where beer, wine, and spirits were served – threatened their safety. The couple claimed in their suit that, since Rad Range opened in July 2021, it has prevented them from using all of their land for their livestock and recreation for fear of being shot.
“Some persons shoot at explosive targets, like Tannerite, at the range,” the suit alleged. “Tannerite explosions create shock waves… [that] continue beyond the range property onto the Dunn property and surrounding properties.”
The Dunns further alleged that some of the gun range’s patrons fired weapons, including “sniper-style rifles,” that could travel over a mile. They also claimed that Rad Range employees had removed their fences, “which were wholly located on the Dunn property” and that the range allowed ammunition to be fired from the property, despite knowing the risk that stray bullets posed to others.
On October 26, 2024, a fire started behind the pistol firing range on the Rad property and consumed more than an acre of the Dunn property before the fire could be contained, according to an amended complaint that the Dunns filed in superior court earlier this year. The Dunns sought more than $25,000 in damages under each of two alleged claims for relief, including negligence, as well as a permanent injunction prohibiting the firing of long-rang/ heavy-caliber firearms, pistols, and rifles on the range property until measures were put in place to stop stray bullets from leaving the property.
On March 6, a few days after the fire that leveled the gun range, a visiting superior court judge from Union County, Matthew B. Smith, concluded that the Dunns suit was likely to succeed and granted a preliminary injunction on behalf of the plaintiffs.
The preliminary injunction prohibits Rad Range and its employees from allowing the discharge of any firearms on its property until the civil suit is fully resolved, according to the civil case file.
