The man accused of defacing the Old City Hall Cenotaph, says he did it in part because of Don Cherry’s firing.

Thomas Zaugg is charged with mischief under $5,000 and mischief interfering with lawful enjoyment of property for allegedly vandalizing the cenotaph with spray paint hours after it was the site of a downtown Remembrance Day ceremony.

The 33-year-old appeared at Old City Hall Court Friday morning and was released on $750 bail, with no deposit, to a surety with the condition that he see a doctor within seven days and undergo any mental health treatment they recommend.

He also has to work with the Fred Victor Centre, a charitable social service organization. And he’s not allowed to get near the Old City Hall Cenotaph, except for court dates, or posses any paint.

The cenotaph, which honours those who died in both World Wars and the Korean War, was vandalized with dark blue spray-painted letters sometime between 10 p.m. Monday and 7 a.m. Tuesday, when police first received reports of the damage.

The words “ye broke faith” could be seen written in capital letters across the bottom of the monument on Tuesday morning, behind wreaths that had been placed at the base for the previous day’s service. The words “with us” could be seen on the backside of the monument.

The graffiti was removed a few hours later.

In court Friday, Zaugg refused the publication ban on evidence that is typically applied at bail hearings, saying it was a “transparent attempt at censorship.”

He appeared in the prisoner’s box wearing a brown jacket, navy blue hoodie and T-shirt and grey sweat pants.

He refused duty counsel and defiantly told the court he wanted to represent himself.

The Crown prosecutor said she has concerns about his mental health, saying he has been diagnosed with schizophrenia and is not taking medication.

Zaugg, she alleged, dressed in a “white military-style sniper suit” to blend in with the snow as he spray-painted the memorial.

The Crown said Zaugg does not have a criminal record, but is known to police.

Zaugg was arrested after he brought a copy of a letter explaining his reasons for defacing the monument to court, she said.

On Wednesday, Zaugg posted a long, rambling statement to Facebook that claimed he spray-painted the memorial after Cherry’s firing in support of veterans, saying the message “honours their memory.”

The graffiti, Zaugg said in the video, was a reference to John McCrae’s 1915 poem “In Flanders Fields,” written during the First World War. The poem’s last lines read:

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

National monuments are “fair targets in the cultural war,” Zaugg wrote in his Facebook note.

Outside court after his release, he said the graffiti was “100 per cent” related to Cherry’s firing over a Coach’s Corner segment in which the hockey icon complained immigrants — whom he referred to as “you people” — weren’t wearing poppies honouring veterans.

The firing, Zaugg said, “needed some type of response.”

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He added that he wanted to bring the monument to life by putting trench poetry from the First World War on it.

He then called the reporters around him “liars, professionally,” before walking away.

Zaugg was interviewed by the Star in 2011, when he was a participant in an Occupy Toronto protest in St. James Park.

With files from Ilya Bañares, Ed Tubb and Sahar Fatima

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