A 23-aged Glendale citizen Victor Petrescu pleaded not guilty to an act of vandalism, Glendale News Press reported.
Despite, Glendale police presented the case as a possible hate crime, the prosecutors settled with the felony vandalism charges, Shiara Dávila-Morales, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office told the newspaper.
Representatives of the Armenian Apostolic Church commended the work of the Glendale police.
“We don’t want to say this is a crime directed toward an Armenian church because it happens to be an Armenian church. But at the same token, we don't want any early determinations of precluding any culpability by virtue of the potential mental health issue this male may or may not have suffered,” Glendale News Press quotes Garo Ghazarian, vice chairman of the Armenian Bar Assn.
St. Mary’s Armenian Apostolic Church in Glendale was vandalized. A 23-aged Glendale citizen Victor Petrescu, Jewish by origin, smashed the monument outside St. Mary’s church using a sledgehammer. The arrested Petrescu told police the Bible says “he must destroy sacred pillars”, Glendale police sergeant Tom Lorenz Lorenz said.
