SMETHPORT — A Port Allegany man accused of making threats in two criminal cases will serve time in McKean County Jail.
Damian M. Andreano, 41, was sentenced Thursday in McKean County Court to serve one to two years in jail with credit for 402 days of time served and three years of probation to be served concurrent to the jail term.
As part of the sentence, President Judge John Pavlock ordered that Andreano not possess any firearms or ammunition. Andreano must also follow his mental health plan — including taking his medications — and get a drug and alcohol evaluation.
On Oct. 17, Andreano pleaded guilty in a 2016 case to a charge of recklessly endangering another person, a second-degree misdemeanor, and in a 2018 case to a charge of terroristic threats, a third-degree felony.
District Attorney Stephanie Vettenburg-Shaffer explained on the day Andreano pleaded guilty that on June 30, 2016, he pulled fuses and wires out of a vehicle that was holding two adult women and a child, poured liquid on the vehicle and threatened to light it on fire.
Then, on Nov. 9, 2018, Andreano made a threat to his grandmother to burn the house down, which not only prompted the others in the house to evacuate but stopped normal activities on U.S. Route 6, according to Shaffer.
Reports from the time of the 2018 standoff indicated that Route 6 was closed for 14 hours while law enforcement from several departments were called to assist. Police eventually went inside the home he was in to find him barricaded in the attic.
At Andreano’s sentencing hearing, defense attorney Dawn Fink brought in a licensed professional counselor who has been working with Andreano for several months. The counselor said she has been talking with Andreano about traumatic events in his past, as well as how he is going to keep his mental health in check in the future.
The plan for when he is released from incarceration includes a partial hospitalization program and case management with daily contact. He has had no behavior problems while he is in jail and taking his medications, the counselor said.
When asked if he wanted to speak on his own behalf, Andreano said quietly, “I just want to apologize.”
Pavlock noted at the hearing that if Fink had not been so prepared with a future plan for Andreano, and if Andreano had not been working so well recently with his counselor, the sentence would have been different.
