Steve Payne
Toronto judge lets “crane girl” off the hook
Canadian ContractorJudge Richard Blouin refused to convict Marisa Lazo on any of the 6 counts of mischief she was facing
Last April, we reported on the crane-climbing adventure of Marisa Lazo, a 23-year old George Brown College architecture student. In the wee hours of April 26, Ms Lazo decided to climb up a 100-metre tall crane on a construction site at Church and Wellesley, Toronto.
After taking some selfies out on the boom, Ms Lazo apparently slipped. She slid all the way down the steel cable to the hook block, where she became stuck, 45 metres above the ground.
After a well-publicized dawn rescue by Toronto firefighters, Lazo was charged with six counts of public mischief.
Now, a Toronto judge has given her an absolute discharge following her statements in court Dec. 29, in which she said that anxiety, insomnia and heavy drinking had plagued her recently – and she wanted to “feel more alive” through the crane prank.
The judge said that an absolute discharge for Lazo was the most appropriate decision he could make, since a conviction or a suspended sentence would leave her with a criminal record, hampering her future prospects and her attempted return to full mental health.
For the full story, see the National Post here.
For Alec Caldwell’s editorial from last April, see here.
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Not sure if I totally agree …. she shut down the work site for the day causing costs to the site developer and ‘down time’ or day’s loss in wages among the site’s workers and sub-trades!! Also causing the city costs for emergency workers for the rescue and possibly taking time away from
REAL tramas.
I think she should have been ordered restitution to some extent if not all and many hours of community service to reflect on her actions. Possibly some of the service work would have given her a more positive outlook on life helping her through her emotional state.
I don’t think she needed a permanent criminal record or anything serious but I don’t know how the system could punish without.
Hi Derek, I may agree with you on this issue, but sometimes justice have their own eyes shut. Poor girl she was disturbed on her mind already, if she end up getting charged may never be able to pay what she caused.
Now what about the OCOT, the Ontario College Of Thieves, holding mechanical garages and other business for hours just to ID some compulsory trades people? Can these crooks be charged or let go free? These crooks are causing millions dollars of damage into our economy, by operating like mafia. They call themselves legal, are they? Sense when the trades people in a free vote agreed with this bullshit? These crooks hold my friend mechanical shop for hours, mid size shop, shut down just to ID some apprenticeship paper, he left his paper in home, they just could verify into their system, but no ,they have to cause economic damage.
That was into a point my friend asked them to leave the shop, he was to close his shop for the day, and send everyone home. Then they decide to leave and came another day just to verify the apprenticeship. It was deliberately done apparently, to justify their bulling ways of intimidation, Capone style. I believe our justice system will use sun glass when comes to charge these suckers for sure, in case they get charge with abusive ways of operation.