A Burbank man who punched a 78-year-old man in a dispute over free Nutella samples at a Costco store was sentenced Tuesday to two years behind bars, but was immediately released.
Derrick Gharabighi -- who had been behind bars since his arrest last September -- was out of custody as of Tuesday afternoon. County jail inmates receive two days credit for every two days served in jail, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.
Gharabighi, 25, pleaded no contest last Oct. 30 to an elder abuse charge stemming from a Sept. 20, 2015, run-in at the Costco store in Burbank.
Authorities said the victim was reaching for a free Nutella waffle sample at the same time Gharabighi was grabbing multiple samples from the same table. The senior citizen told Gharabighi not to take so many of the free samples because he wanted one, and the defendant responded by punching him in the face.
Burbank police called to the warehouse store found the man, whose name was withheld, suffering from a "significant laceration above his left eye and swelling around the same area of his face."
