A Good Humor man was served 18 months' probation Tuesday for losing his cool with a foul-mouthed teenager.
Nazzareno Didiano, 44, stopped dishing out peanut butter bars and Blue Bunnies last May 12 and began pummeling a pudgy-faced Bloomfield teen during a meltdown.
The teen, now 14, told Allegheny County Judge John A. Zottola during a brief trial that Didiano grabbed him by the arm, yanked him from his bike, punched him in the face and slammed him into a wall.
The attack came after the boy berated and cursed Didiano over the cost of his cones.
"I wanted to tell him I didn't appreciate being talked to like that," said Didiano, who denied punching the boy.
Zottola ruled he did not believe Didiano and convicted him of simple assault. In addition to the probation, Didiano must take anger management classes and reimburse the teenager $20 for damage to his bike.
The teen giggled as Didiano recounted the obscenities directed at him.
Didiano, who worked for Paul's Ice Cream Co., served up his own frosty insults.
"I told him he didn't need any ice cream anyway because he's fat," said Didiano.
The teen, about 5-foot-5 and 140 pounds, responded by calling Didiano a "bald (expletive) ripoff." Didiano later attacked when he found the boy sitting on a bike two blocks away.
Assistant District Attorney Dan Regan presented photographs of a red-faced victim with a cut inside of his mouth.
"He instigated the whole thing," said Didiano, who is looking for a new job.
The teen's mother said she's satisfied with the verdict, but complained that her son is now self-conscious about his weight.
"This has been a nightmare," she said.
Once again, the money quote comes at the end, buried under the other stuff. Time was when this kid would've been laughed off the street for having the nerve to bring charges against the ice-cream man, and time was when his mama (if she ever found out) would've worn the living daylights out of his backside and grounded his butt 'til he was twenty-one. Now she defends him AND sobs about the nightmare it's all been.
I'm sorry. While I do agree that the Good Humor dude should've kept his fisticuffs to himself, I also believe that had his Mommy given him a few more well-timed butt-bustin's during his lifetime instead of coddling him and explaining away his foul mouth and bad behavior, this probably would never have come up.
Just my opinion, of course.
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