TORONTO -- A Toronto judge convicted a 37-year-old man on 49 counts of violently terrorizing his west-end neighborhood since 2003.
Ralph Scala was arrested in July after his neighbors presented a petition with 119 signatures to police, the Toronto Star reported.
"An entire community was terrorized," Crown prosecutor Jody Milstein told court Thursday, outlining the case for mischief, criminal harassment and threatening.
Milstein said the victims of vandalism and threatening ranged from a 3-year-old girl to an 86-year-old woman.
In many of the cases reported to police, local youths were allegedly hired by Scala to smash windows, slash car tires and scratch cars' paint. Neighbors also complained he had trained his pit bull dog to be aggressive and let it run without a leash or muzzle, the report said.
His 62-year-old father, Felice Scala, 62, is alleged to have been involved in some of the incidents and is free on bail facing four charges, the Star said.
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