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This article was published 12/4/2017 (1254 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Driving down a dark city street at night, 75-year-old Ciro Barracano hit a man with his car and left him there to die. When police questioned him more than two weeks later, Barracano told them he'd hit a family of deer.

Family and friends of 22-year-old Christopher Nero packed a Winnipeg courtroom Wednesday to drive home to Barracano all that has been taken from them in the two years since Nero was killed in that fatal hit-and-run on Inkster Boulevard on May 2, 2015.

FACEBOOK PHOTO Chris Nero

"Christopher had a smile that lit up a room," his mother, Robyn Werner, told court, describing her late son as a hard-worker with a playful sense of humour and a steadfast group of grade-school friends.

"Chris's death has not only devastated his family and friends, but also his community. This is who was left to die on a busy street like an animal," she read aloud in front of the man who fled the scene of the accident.

Barracano, now 77, has been sentenced to nine months in jail after he pleaded guilty to charges of failing to stop at the scene and public mischief. Provincial court Judge John Guy imposed the sentence Wednesday after Barracano took the unusual step of testifying about what led up to the accident.

With the aid of an Italian translator, Barracano said he'd been at a Legion Hall earlier that night with a friend, and had consumed one beer mixed with gingerale. By 11:30 p.m., he'd dropped off his friend and was heading home himself, driving along Inkster near Bunting Street.

"It was very dark. I didn't see any shadow," he said. "Somebody hit my car."

"I didn't have the presence to brake right away and his body hit my car," Barracano said in response to questions from his defence lawyer, Vincent Bueti.

Barracano said he then stopped and got out of his car -- he said he could see the man's shoes and could tell that he was hurt -- but he didn't have a cell phone to call for help. He claimed he drove to a nearby gas station and shouted at staff to call police because there had been an accident. He said he didn't mention where the accident was. He said he was "shaking" too much to drive back to the scene of the accident. Instead, he drove "very slowly" across the city, back to his home on Wilkes Avenue. By 12:06 a.m., while other witnesses who had discovered Nero in a pool of blood on the street were giving statements to police, Barracano was at home. He never called police about the accident.

A few days later, he opened an insurance claim with Manitoba Public Insurance about the damage to his car, telling MPI that he had been driving back to Winnipeg from Selkirk when he hit a family of deer. He repeated the lie to police, who knocked on his door after they'd been tipped off by a tow truck driver who had been tasked with taking away the damaged vehicle. "I don't want to drive anymore. Just take my car," Barracano told the tow truck driver, according to court records.

Investigators noted severe damage to the driver's side windshield and blood on the inside of the vehicle -- they presumed Barracano had come into contact with the bleeding victim before returning to his car and driving away. But on the stand Wednesday, Barracano said he hadn't seen any blood.

Crown attorney Manoja Moorthy urged the judge not to believe the "elaborate and preposterous stories that he (Barracano) said to the court on the stand today," and disregard Barracano's claim that he went looking for help at a gas station. Police were unable to verify the claim two years after the fact.

Barracano didn't go to the police, he said, because he was confused and embarrassed. He admitted the truth in the middle of his interview with police on May 20, 2015 -- during which he didn't mention having gone to a gas station for help.

His testimony, Moorthy said, is "evidence of someone who is selfish, as he was that night when he left Mr. Nero dying on the street."

Defence lawyer Bueti told court Barracano, who arrived in Canada in the early 1970s and formerly worked as a dance instructor at an Italian community centre in Winnipeg, was assessed as showing signs of cognitive impairment.

"His conduct, although illegal, was not totally unreasonable," Bueti told court.

He requested a 90-day intermittent jail sentence for his client, as well as a fine for filing a false claim with MPI and community service work. The Crown sought an 18-month jail sentence.

The judge said if Barracano had remained at the scene of the crash, it likely would have simply been considered an accident. Police collision analysts determined the crash may have been caused by the victim, who was intoxicated at the time.

Just before he was sentenced, a tearful Barracano addressed the full courtroom, telling Nero's family "I know your pain," and "I'm no criminal."

As he was led away by sheriff's officers, Barracano waved to the victim's grandparents outside court. They had waited nearly two years for the case to be brought to justice, but now they said they don't expect to ever have closure.

"I don't think he's remorseful," Nero's grandmother, Judy Werner, told the Free Press.

"I'm just glad that it was acknowledged that he did wrong," she said.

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @thatkatiemay