Police last week arrested an 81-year-old New Canaan man by warrant and charged him with first-degree criminal mischief and interfering with an officer.
He had work done at the Park Mead condominiums on Park Street in violation of a civil court order, and tried to use an old building permit to justify that work when confronted by police, according to an arrest warrant application obtained by NewCanaanite.com.
Police were dispatched to the Park Street complex on June 26 on a complaint that a resident there was being “denied access to a shared common space,” according to the application, filed by Officer Nicole Vartuli and signed Oct. 14 by state Superior Court Judge Bruce Hudock.
The complainant told the arriving police that “there was unauthorized and illegal construction work being performed in a common area of the Park Mead Association building,” the application said.
Vartuli said police saw “a construction crew… in a lower level common area of the building working on a large hole in the vacant concrete space between unit 20S above and the common area below,” it said.
The owner of that unit, the arrested man, said “yes” when asked if he had a permit for the work “and pointed to a Town of New Canaan building permit inside the window facing out to the exterior.” Dated Feb. 28, 2019, the permit was for “minor exterior work, new stairs going to the basement storage area and new basement window.”
Fire safety officials arrived on scene and found that there was a large rectangular hole in the ceiling—two-by-five-feet—in a “fire wall that affects the fire separation between the two floor levels,” Vartuli said in the application.
Police noted that there was an ongoing civil dispute “regarding the use and ownership of the common area” and that “it was determined by a judge that the lower level concrete area is property of the Park Mead Association” and the unit owner above “does not have the right to consider it his own private space and make alterations to it in any way,” as per a March 2024 stipulated court order agreement.
The contractor walked away from the job after police alerted the company of the order, the application said. In July of this year, the condo association notified police that the “foundational damage” to the building amounted to about $23,000, including the following work: “installation of a steel beam according to drawing; installation of temporary support with plywood and 2×4; restore storage unit to original state; demolition and disposal of framing materials; clean up of debris; concrete work construction of concrete wall around steel work.”
Vartuli noted that New Canaan Police had arrested the same man in 2020 “for the same alteration of an approximately 2-by-5-foot hole into the allocated space below his unit” that was not approved by the association—an approximately $89,000 job to repair.
A July 2025 court order stated that the man “could use the storage space beneath the basement only as a storage space” and that it “may not be used as a living space” and “no alterations or improvements” could be made to it without prior authorization from Park Mead.”
The man turned himself in to police on Oct. 28. He was released on $50,000 bond and scheduled to appear Nov. 6 in state Superior Court.