‘Sick’ of life of crime, home invader promises to do better

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After once being shot in the head as part of a dangerous ritual to extricate himself from his Montreal gang, Michael Yankopulos returned to Windsor for a fresh start.

But a life of crime that included increasingly violent offences continued. A sentencing hearing was held Monday for his latest, and what was at least his second Windsor robbery conviction (his record boasts four robberies total). A 2019 home invasion and robbery left the victim — who had a firearm pointed at his face — traumatized and eventually admitted into a hospital psychiatric ward due to suicidal thoughts.

“I feel like I’m broken in some ways,” victim Hunter O’Neal said Monday of the consequences of a “dreaded night” when Yankopulos and two others entered his home, threatened him at gunpoint and left with an estimated $10,000 in jewelry and personal items.

In a victim impact statement read before Superior Court Justice Renee Pomerance, O’Neal said he has not been able to work or return to school since the incident and continues to suffer from PTSD and other anxiety disorders as well as “severe” depression.

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“I do not feel safe anymore, anywhere,” O’Neal said, adding he sleeps next to a smartphone to call police and a “200-pound dog next to me” but still wakes up sweating in bed.

“I’m sorry, I can’t stress that enough,” Yankopulos, now 36, said from the South West Detention Centre during the sentencing hearing via Zoom. “I never went there with the intentions to harm anyone.”

His actual intention that day, he told the court, was to try and sell an imitation firearm for $700 to cover his rent payment. While sympathetic to his victim, Yankopulos wanted the judge to know his own life is far worse: “What he’s going through, I feel that every day — 20 times more than that.”

Invited by the judge to speak prior to her determination of a fit sentence, Yankopulos went on at length about his own circumstances. He said he’s housed in a wing of the local jail set aside for “pedophiles and rapists and no-good people,” and at one point the large-statured man stood and pulled up the top of his orange prisoner outfit to show where he’d previously been shot and stabbed.

I never had love — no real love

Her client’s life has been “particularly tragic,” said defence lawyer Helen Karpouzos, citing an abusive upbringing and being drawn into gang life “for support and stability.” Recently, however, with one of his children fighting for her life with cancer, “he’s found a reason to live” and wants to change for the better.

The defence is asking for a four-year prison term, minus 28 months credit for time served in pre-sentence custody since his arrest by Windsor police just hours after the Oct. 6, 2019, home invasion on Bonita Street.

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The aggravating factors, including a lengthy criminal record, the invasion of the victim’s home while he was there and the threat of violence, demand a much harsher sentence, said assistant Crown attorney Nicole Lamphier, in the range of eight to 10 years in prison. Yankopulos violated a number of probation orders and court-imposed prohibition orders committing his latest violent crime, she said.

The gun pointed in the victim’s face may have been a replica, said Lamphier, but the victim didn’t know this: “It was still a terrorizing event.”

A pre-sentence report indicated Yankopulos “wanted to become a gangster” when he was younger and that he has “limited insight into his behaviour.”

In his own statement to the judge, Yankopulos said he was “sick” of the criminal life. “This is me begging you for a chance.”

“Family? I never had it. I never had a mom, I never had a dad…. I never had friends, I never had love — no real love,” he said, tearing up at times.

“I’m pleading for my life — I never got no chances,” said the father of three, adding: “I don’t wanna hustle anymore.”

Pomerance, who announces her sentencing decision April 30, said: “I’ve listened very carefully to what you said.”

The other two Bonita Street home invaders have never been identified.

dschmidt@postmedia.com

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