Seymour Man Faces Five Years For Bizarre 2011 Incident

A Seymour man faces up to five years behind bars in connection with a bizarre 2011 incident in which he held a neighbor at gunpoint because he thought she and her family were sending harmful fumes into his residence.

The man, Michael Allegretto, 57, pleaded guilty under the Alford doctrine Tuesday before Judge Frank Iannotti to a single count of first-degree burglary at Superior Court in Milford.

Under Alford, a defendant does not admit all of the allegations he or she is charged with, but concedes that a conviction is likely if the case went to trial.

According to the terms of a plea deal between Assistant State’s Attorney Charles Stango and Allegretto’s lawyer, Michael Hillis, Allegretto faces up to five years in prison when he is sentenced in the case Jan. 7, 2014. Hillis will have the opportunity to argue for no jail time.

Stango said Allegretto lived in one half of a duplex on Derby Avenue in Seymour in 2011 when he began acting strangely toward his neighbors and began accusing them of trying to harm him by sending harmful fumes through the house’s ductwork.

Stango said Allegretto became ​“more and more irrational” until the early morning hours of Feb. 11, 2011, when a woman who lived in the house was sitting at her kitchen table having a cup of tea and Allegretto came through the door armed with a handgun and threatened her.

“He had the handgun and was threatening her and was accusing her of trying to harm him through the ductwork,” Stango said. ​“Ultimately he let her go and left the apartment.”

Police then found Allegretto in his apartment and took him into custody without incident.

Stango said the case was a difficult one to resolve.

On the one hand, he pointed out, the woman said she had ​“never been more scared in my entire life” than during the harrowing 2011 incident.

But on the other hand, Stango said the woman saw Allegretto’s behavior morph over the course of several weeks before leading up to the incident to the point she couldn’t recognize the man she had known.

“The night that he was in front of me holding that weapon, it was not Michael,” Stango quoted the woman as saying.

The prosecutor also pointed out that Allegretto has been under psychiatric care since posting $200,000 bond in the case shortly after his arrest, and has managed to stay out of trouble.

The woman indicated she agreed with Tuesday’s plea deal, he said, which calls for a 10-year prison sentence to be suspended after up to five years in prison, followed by five years of probbation.

The woman was ​“thrilled not to have to testify, and hopes Mr. Allegretto gets the help he needs,” Stango said in court.

Stango said after the plea that the case presented ​“double-digit jail facts in a defendant who has no prior (criminal) history.”

“The first time he did anything wrong, he went right to the top of the charts,” Stango said. ​“The challenge here was not proving the case. The challenge was getting to the just and right result.”

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