Taxpayers on hook for criminal’s $1.4-M ‘demolition derby’

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 14/03/2025 (241 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Aaron Yarema was high on cocaine and meth when he drove an excavator around a City of Winnipeg compound, smashing into equipment and buildings, causing $1.4 million in damage — but it’s taxpayers who will bear the financial burden of his crime.

A judge ordered the 39-year-old man to pay back the money, but court was told it’s unlikely Yarema will have the ability to do so.

Yarema appeared to smirk while seated in the courtroom’s prisoner box throughout Friday’s proceedings.

He had pleaded guilty to mischief over $5,000, dangerous operation of a motor vehicle, and assaulting a police officer in relation to the incident on Sept. 3, 2023.

RCMP were called to the city water plant off Deacon Road in the Rural Municipality of Springfield around 3 a.m. after staff reported a man had broken in to the compound and was driving around in an excavator, smashing into construction equipment, city vehicles and buildings.

Yarema damaged 15 city vehicles, four pieces of heavy equipment and several plant buildings.

“All of the damages will likely be covered in some way or another by the taxpayers of the City of Winnipeg,” said provincial court Judge Vincent Sinclair at Yarema’s sentencing hearing.

Sinclair gave Yarema just over 2 years and eight months of custody, less time served. He’ll serve another 144 days in a provincial jail.

Sinclair issued three restitution orders, totalling $1.46 million. Yarema was ordered to pay $503,655 to the city’s vehicle fleet management department, $710,000 to the city for building repairs, and $250,000 to the city for its insurance deductible.

Crown prosecutor Martyn Langstaff has said he doesn’t expect Yarema will be able to make financial restitution.

Yarema was also given a year of supervised probation, which includes an order to stay away from the water treatment plant after his release from jail.

When Mounties arrived, they saw Yarema recklessly driving the excavator and trying to damage a building, Sinclair said.

Officers used a loudspeaker to tell him to stop, but he drove away from them.

Two officers jumped on the machine, got the door open and threatened to shock him with a Taser.

Yarema stopped, but became unco-operative and spat on one of the Mounties when they were pulling him out of the vehicle, resulting in the assault on a peace officer charge.

Sinclair said Yarema has not accepted the gravity of his actions.

He admitted to a probation officer, who was preparing a pre-sentence report, that he had been using cocaine and methamphetamine prior to the crime.

But Yarema blamed his actions on the person who left the key in the ignition of the excavator, rather than himself or the drugs, claiming it was “inevitable that a person would go on such a rampage, or demolition derby, as he called it,” said the judge.

Yarema said spitting at the Mountie was justified because he felt targeted.

“I don’t know how a person can feel targeted when they’re in the midst of causing significant damage and the police are simply responding,” said Sinclair.

He’s been assessed as a high risk to commit more criminal incidents.

Sinclair did not put much weight on Yarema’s Indigenous background — Gladue factors, such as the impacts of colonialism and residential schools that judges consider at sentencing — when issuing Yarema’s jail bid.

“There’s nothing here to support it had a major negative effect on this accused,” said Sinclair.

Yarema had an unstable home life and moved around a lot as a kid, with his family breaking up while he was young. His parents were alcoholics, said Sinclair. Yarema’s mother is from Fisher River Cree Nation.

Yarema was also sentenced Friday for an unrelated assault on a police officer. He spat on the officer at the Winnipeg police processing unit in February 2023.

He was on bail for that offence — and other alleged crimes that are still before the court — when he smashed up the water treatment plant.

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca