WESTFIELD – A Feeding Hills man is being held in jail after he became enraged Monday morning when a relative refused to give him money and he repeatedly smashed his car into her vehicle.
City police report that officers Michel Curran and John Parrish were dispatched to Quail Hollow Drive after a resident called police at 9:14 a.m. to report that her nephew threatened her and damaged her car.
Curran reports that the victim said that her nephew, Michael C. Kopeski, 24, of 53 Orlando St., Feeding Hills, came to her door and demanded money, ostensibly for dental work.
The woman told Curran that, because she thought her nephew really wanted money for drugs, she immediately refused his request and closed and locked the door.
She said that she then went to her garage to meet her neighbor who was waiting to drive her to a medical appointment.
In a document filed in District Court in support of an application for a criminal complaint, Curran reports that the victim said that when she and her neighbor started to leave, her neighbor exchanged words with Kopeski and told him to leave. When he did not leave, she spoke again with him directly, asking him to leave and specifically telling him that he was not welcome in her home.
She told Curran that Kopeski became enraged and started screaming, cursing and insulting her and her whole family before he drove the Chevrolet Cavalier he was driving, which belongs to his mother, across her flower garden and intentionally rammed it into her car which was parked in her driveway. The woman said that her nephew then backed up and smashed into her vehicle twice more before leaving the area.
Curran reports that Kopeski was found a short time later, walking on Wildflower Circle, and the car he had been driving was found to be parked nearby in a driveway apparently chosen at random.
Kopeski was served a ‘No trespassing’ order and was arrested for vandalizing property.
The vehicle was towed and the pre-tow inventory revealed a white powder which was tested and found to be some type of methamphetamine. Kopeski was also charged with possession of a Class B drug.
Kopeski appeared in Westfield District Court later on Monday where he was arraigned before Judge Philip A. Contant who set bail at $1,000.
Contant offered several reasons for setting the bail, including the fact that Kopeski is on bail pending adjudication of a prior charge in another court and “the defendant’s present dug dependency.”
He wrote “Def(endant) may very well be withdrawing from PCP. He has been extremely disruptive in the lockup today – screaming, taking all his clothes off.”
Kopeski is scheduled to return to court for a hearing Oct. 31.
