A man was found guilty of breaking into a SkyTrain facility and stealing nearly $50,000 worth of HVAC equipment.
Curtis George Romanowski pleaded not guilty to mischief over $5,000, theft over $5,000 and break-and-enter in October over an incident at the Sapperton SkyTrain substation. In a November ruling published online last week, Romanowski was convicted on the theft and break-and-enter.
In court, Romanowski attempted to muddy the waters, claiming items containing his DNA found at the site of the incident were not proof of his involvement in the incident.
After an alarm was triggered at the substation on March 6, 2018, a maintenance worker found the HVAC system had been broken into and evaporator coils and condenser coils, containing copper, were missing. The worker also found several items next to the HVAC system, including pliers, a bag, a glove and a hacksaw.
Inside the bag, police found a needle, clothing and a work glove, which tested positive for Romanowski’s DNA.
Romanowski argued in court his items could have been found there for a number of reasons, not all of which include his participation in the theft of the coils.
But Judge Dan Sudeyko dismissed each of those reasons, saying the difficult access to the substation meant it was an “extremely unlikely” place to find shelter. Sudeyko similarly said it was “highly unlikely” the items were simply discarded at the substation.
Sudeyko dismissed as “pure speculation” the notion that someone else could have brought the items to the substation while committing the theft.
“The only reasonable inference to be drawn from the whole of the evidence … is that Mr. Romanowski was a party to the offences of the break-and-enter, theft over $5,000 and mischief,” Sudeyko said.
However, he said he was unable to conclude that the damage amounted to more than $5,000, leading to Crown asking for the charge of mischief over $5,000 to be dropped.
