Condo Owner Smeared Feces, Eggs, Keyed Cars, Victims Say

Residents of an upscale Niles condo building say they lived in fear of a renegade condo owner who intimidated residents. Some of them plan to attend Monday's Cook County court hearing for Norman Kazmierski, who is charged with four felony counts of criminal damage to property.

He was charged for keying and causing damage to four cars owned by residents at the condo building, at 7201 W. Touhy. Gary Chase, the condo board president, said the building association installed $5,000 worth of security cameras to catch him in the act.

The cameras did not catch him elbowing a small woman on the elevator, nor lying in wait for certain women to park their cars in the garage, but residents witnessed those, Chase said. 

And the condo board said he smeared feces on Chase's door, and smashed eggs near the door of the former condo board president, according to the Niles Herald-Spectator.

"It really devastated some people here," said Chase, citing the example of one woman whose car was keyed. He said Kazmierski eventually paid her $1,700 for the damage, without admitting fault. 

"We were afraid somebody might get hurt. He was getting bolder," Chase said.

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Residents got a scare in the middle of the night one night when alarms started blaring and strobe lights were flashing. The alarm was tripped because someone had set the controls on the fire sprinkler system to empty out the water, so that if there had been a fire, there would have been no water available to fight it. 

Chase credits Niles Police Detective Thomas Fragassi for working with residents over a period of months last year to stop the intimidation. Fragassi learned Kazmierski used to work in the City of Chicago water department, which could potentially have given him the knowledge to tamper with the fire sprinkler system. 

"The eggs we could live with, but the sprinkler system--to me, that was a criminal act," Chase said. "If we had had an emergency, the sprinkler system would not have worked."

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Kazmierski also called police on a few occasions to report that the condo board was harassing him, and once told them that the former board president's wife had climbed onto his second-floor balcony to spy on him, Chase recalled, adding she did not do such a thing.

The original police report detailing the four felony charges against Kazmierski said that on Jan. 6, 2013, a known offender was observed on surveillance cameras damaging four vehicles--a 2006 Honda four-door, 2004 Buick four-door, a 2007 Honda SUV, and 2004 Cadillac. 

It said the offender was the owner of a condo unit in the building which had been for sale for some time, and was not occupied. 

Kazmierski turned himself in to police on Jan. 29, the report said.