Projo 7 to 7 News Blog

JOHNSTON -- Two men who allegedly claimed to be town public works employees and laid asphalt on a driveway of a home on Dennison Street without the owner's permission and then demanded $1,500 payment are facing charges of willful trespass, vandalism and false advertising in connection with the incident.

The police said officers were responding to the homeowner's complaint at about 4:30 p.m. on June 17 when, on Killingly Street, they spotted the blue dump truck that had been described.

Remo Grieci, 44, of Rockingham Rd., Windham, N.H., and Nelson R. Cooper, 46 of Bernon St., Providence, were arrested. They appeared Thursday in District Court, where Judge Jeanne E. LaFazia ordered them held on bail of $1,500 and $3,500, respectively and continued the case to July 3.

Dawn Catallozzi, of 2 Dennison St.,told the police a first-floor tenant notified her on June 17 that two trucks with asphalt had been parked in front of her house. She returned home immediately and confronted two men who identified themselves as Johnston public works employees who had some "extra asphalt" that could be used to patch up her driveway.

She says she told them not to do anything without first talking to her husband and left to get a haircut. Fifteen minutes later her husband, Ralph Catallozzi, arrived to discover that a crew of five or six men with two trucks had put asphalt down on the driveway.

He said that when the men demanded payment of $1,500 for their "work," he told them to meet him at his office on Hartford Avenue, which he said was a play for time so he could call police.

In addition to the charges of vandalism, willful trespass and false advertising filed against both man, Cooper, the driver of the blue dump truck, was charged with driving without a license. The driver of a red truck, bearing a sign that said "Robinson Paving," was never identified.

 Tags  johnston ri

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