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Austintown family traps, ties up intruder
By JUSTIN DENNIS
AUSTINTOWN
Township residents fed up with recent burglaries at their home reportedly trapped and tied up the masked home intruder Wednesday morning.
James J. Centafanti, 39, of Norquest Boulevard, Youngstown, burglarized the Kirk Road home three times in the last four days, according to a township police report. He’s in the Mahoning County jail, thanks to Gregory and Rosa Spelich and Rosa’s father, John Klacik.
Rosa Spelich said Centafanti did odd jobs for her father’s business, Klacik Heating and Cooling – which the family runs out of the Klacik’s Kirk Road home – loading trucks or giving a hand around the house. Centafanti knew how to enter the home, Rosa Spelich said.
Austintown Detective Jeff Solic said the burglaries were targeted, and they weren’t his first trespasses. Centafanti was brought up on burglary charges at the same home in 2015, but he pleaded to lesser petty theft and criminal trespass charges.
At that time, Klacik didn’t seek a hefty sentence or a protection order against Centafanti. Rosa Spelich said the family knew Centafanti had developed a drug problem and just wanted him to get help. They thought time spent in jail might do him some good, she said.
County Common Pleas Court records show Centafanti pleaded guilty to felony charges of drug abuse in 2008 and was diverted to the county’s drug court.
“My dad had hopes for this kid being the kid that he knew before,” she said. “He wanted to see that kid again.”
But earlier this month, loose money at the Kirk Road home started going missing overnight. The family then installed new security cameras around the home.
Klacik had left money out in the open for Centafanti to find, and took photos of the bills’ serial numbers to show police, Rosa Spelich said.
Just after 4 a.m. Wednesday, the home’s door was left unlocked. When the cameras spotted him again, wearing the same clothes from previous nights, the Speliches surprised and apprehended him without incident, binding his hands with zip ties until police arrived. They didn’t tell police about the week’s previous burglaries until Centafanti was caught, Solic said.
“That’s not our advice to do that – set a trap for somebody and when they break into your house, pounce on them like a skunk in a live trap,” he said.
Centafanti admitted to taking $25 from the home earlier this week in order to pay down a gambling debt. He did tell the Speliches he was “sorry,” Rosa Spelich said.
“I have no idea why he’s just tormenting my family. He’s literally terrorizing my family. I don’t feel like my parents are safe when he’s out of jail,” Rosa Spelich said, adding the family will be seeking a protection order now.
Centafanti is set for arraignment on three felony counts of burglary Oct. 1 in the county area court in Austintown.