2011-03-07
Faces prison term over G20 riot
A Windsor man facing two years in prison for setting a heavily damaged police cruiser on fire during the G20 summit in Toronto last summer says he has been made a scapegoat in the aftermath of the riot.
“They want to use me to make an example,” said Nicodemo Catenacci, fighting back tears as he stood in the doorway of his parents’ Southwood Lakes home Tuesday. He said he was an “innocent bystander” on June 26 when he awoke to rioting in downtown Toronto. “I didn’t wake up that day saying I’m going to burn a police car.”
Catenacci, 40, pleaded guilty in a Toronto courtroom this week to arson. Catenacci said he has offered to pay $10,000 in restitution, but the Crown, citing Catenacci’s criminal record, wants the Windsor carpenter to go to jail for up to two years.
Catenacci has 17 prior convictions dating back to 2000, mainly for theft and breaching court orders in both Windsor and Toronto.
Catenacci’s lawyer, pointing out the man was not affiliated with the protesters, is asking for six months in jail, or house arrest for any sentence longer than that. The judge reserved her decision, saying she will sentence Catenacci March 16.
Speaking with The Star on Tuesday, Catenacci said that on the day of the rioting, a Saturday, he had been doing cocaine and woke up around 3 p.m. in the room he was renting near Dundas and Jarvis streets in downtown Toronto. He was in the city for work.
“I was strung out, I admit it,” he said, explaining the drugs clouded his judgment. He said he showered and ventured down Dundas for something to eat. “It was like a war zone.”
Protesters with their faces masked were pounding on an abandoned police cruiser. Photos police released of Catenacci amid the rioting showed the cruiser sprayed with graffiti and having its windows smashed out before Catenacci approached it.
Catenacci picked up a piece of paper, lit it on fire and threw it into the car. Two other people he doesn’t know did the same.
“I knew right away I did a mistake,” he said. “I’ve disgraced my family.”
But, he added,“They’re blowing this out of proportion.” He said police, under fire for their own actions that day, have made him “the goat.”
He said he is an easy target because, unlike other vandals, he wasn’t wearing a mask.
“Seven cars were burned that day. All the people who burned all those other cars, they can’t get them.”
Catenacci said police used face-recognition technology to find him, matching him to bank machine videos. They arrested him at his parents’ home a month after the summit.
On Monday, as Catenacci entered his guilty plea, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and the National Union of Public and General Employees released a report calling for an inquiry into allegations of police brutality and unlawful detentions.
“While the widespread property damage that occurred during the Summit was deplorable, it neither justified nor warranted the extent of the police response that occurred,” the two groups wrote.
“It is imperative that there be a full public inquiry into what happened during the G20 in order to get at the truth and ensure it doesn’t happen again.”
Opposition parties at Queen’s Park also called for an inquiry, which Premier Dalton McGuinty swiftly refused.
Catenacci said prosecutors are taking a hard stance against him to divert blame away from police.
“They’re trying to clear their name with a guy like me.”
Catenacci spent nine days in jail after his arrest. His elderly parents -his father turns 70 next month -bailed him out.
Since then, he has been working steadily for Colavino Construction which has the contract for the new engineering building at the University of Windsor. Catenacci said the company gave him a reference letter for the court, but has told him it can’t hold his job if he goes to jail. Catenacci said if he can’t work for more than six months, under union rules, he’ll lose his standing for future work.
Catenacci said he’s already out $10,000 for legal fees.
“They want to ruin my life for a stupid, little piece of paper. That car was going to get burned anyway. I’m not very smart, but I know when I’m not being treated fairly.”