Man pleads guilty in fatal stolen SUV crash

Manitoba Justice will seek an adult sentence for a man who, as a teen, helped steal an SUV that killed a Winnipeg father.

The man, now 19,was charged with manslaughter and theft over $5,000 in connection with the December 2009 crash in Winnipeg's North End that killed Zdzislaw Andrzejczak, 47. The man pleaded guilty in court Monday morning to the theft count. Prosecutors stayed the manslaughter charge.

While the man can't be named because he was charged under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, Crown attorney Mick Makar told provincial court Judge Carena Roller he will seek an adult sentence in the case.

That means he faces a possible prison term of 10 years if the sentencing judge rules in the Crown's favour of the adult penalty.

The guilty plea was cold comfort for Andrzejczak's family.

"Well, it just goes to show, you know, these people belong behind bars," Andrzejczak's son Kamil said Monday. "Cause what else can you do? You put the monitoring bracelet on; you give them their probabtion orders; their bail orders, everything. It doesn't matter. The only [way] anyone is going to be safe is if they're going to be behind bars. That ankle bracelet didn't save my dad.

In a brief summary of the case read by Makar in court, the then-17-year-old boy helped steal a Hummer H2 on the morning of Dec. 11, 2009.

"He acted as a lookout while the vehicle was stolen," Makar said.

Makar said the teen and others were spotted at various points throughout the day riding in the SUV. The youth was a passenger in the vehicle when it ran a stop sign at Alfred Avenue and Andrews Street at about 3:30 p.m.

Died at hospital

The large SUV slammed into Andrzejczak's much smaller Subaru at 94 km/h in a 50 km/h zone. The victim died shortly after in hospital.

The driver of the Hummer, Mark Rodgers, 19, fled the scene on foot, as did the youth. Rodgers recently pleaded guilty to criminal negligence causing death and is awaiting sentencing.

The teen in court Monday was wearing an electronic monitoring bracelet up until about two hours prior to the crash, Makar said. The bracelet was meant to keeptrack ofhis movements as a condition of a probation for a prior auto-theft-related crime.

The province began outfitting habitual teen auto thieves with the bracelets in 2008.

Asked by the judge whether he understood what his guilty plea meant, the man simply said "yes."

The case was remanded to March 7 while a pre-sentencing report is prepared.