On Aug. 7, 2021, a grey 2008 Mercedes ended up wrapped around a pole at the intersection of McPherson Avenue and Rumble Street in South Burnaby.
But the man who crashed the car into the pole at high speed was not the owner, according to facts presented in Vancouver provincial court by Crown prosecutor Violet Allard Monday.
The owner was an 18-year-old woman who had gotten it as a birthday and graduation present.
That afternoon, she had lost a terrifying “tug-of-war” inside the car with a stranger in a hospital gown who had come into a townhouse complex on McPherson Avenue looking for drugs, according to the facts.
The young woman, whom Allard described as just over five feet tall and weighing about 110 pounds, had been headed to her car with two friends when they crossed paths with Attila Kemeny, a 28-year-old-man wearing only sweat pants and a hospital gown with no shirt.
He went to one of the townhouses and began pounding on the patio door.
The teens got “very scared” and one of them yelled “Run!” Allard said.
The young woman hurried to unlock the Mercedes, but the fob didn’t work, and she had to unlock the car door manually.
Instead of her friends getting in, however, it was Kemeny who got into the passenger seat.
“He says nothing to her,” Allard said. “She’s fighting him off, and she perceives herself to be in grave danger, and he is focused, somewhat singularly, on getting control of the vehicle.”
Kemeny eventually managed to make his way from the passenger seat into the driver’s seat, thrusting the teen out of the car in the process.
He then took off at “extreme velocity” on McPherson, according to Allard, but missed a right-hand turn onto Rumble and ended up crashing into the pole.
He was taken to hospital and arrested there.
Kemeny was originally charged with robbery in the case, but on Monday he pleaded guilty to assault and motor vehicle theft instead.
He also pleaded guilty to stealing a bottle of Crystal Skull vodka from a Surrey liquor store on Feb. 26 and two knapsacks from a Strange Fellows Brewing truck in Vancouver on Aug. 5.
Defence lawyer David Hopkins said Kemeny struggles with addiction and his drug use was “out of control” in the days leading up to the incident with the Mercedes.
He had been committed at Burnaby Hospital for a short time before being released and dropped off by police at a nearby SkyTrain station that day, Hopkins said.
“He’s very frank,” Hopkins said. “He says he very much wanted to get drugs immediately.”
Kemeny knew a dealer in the area and was banging on doors to find him, according to Hopkins.
He said he found the dealer and agreed to do a service for him in exchange for drugs.
“That involved getting into a car out front and following another driver and then doing what he was instructed to do,” Hopkins said. “What he tells me is he was just singly focused on getting drugs and he thought the way to do that was to take control of this car, drive it off and do whatever was being asked of him.”
Kemeny doesn’t have any specific recollection of pushing or fighting with the young woman who owned the car but understands he intimidated her, according to Hopkins.
In court, Kemeny apologized to her and her two friends.
“I’m truly sorry for what I’ve done,” he said through a Hungarian interpreter.
Allard said Kemeny should be sentenced to 15 months in prison and 18 months’ probation.
That would mean about six-and-a-half more months in custody after credit for time served.
Hopkins recommended his client be sentenced to time served and probation.
Allard noted Kemeny had already spent at least three years in prison for a string of robberies in 2015.
She said his crimes haven’t been well planned and appear to be “drug addled or drug fuelled” but put others in “harm’s way and cause them a great deal of fear.”
Both lawyers agreed rehabilitation, including drug treatment, was important consideration in sentencing.
In the end, B.C. provincial court Judge Nancy Adams decided to postpone her sentence and order a pre-sentencing report with a psychological/psychiatric component.
“I think it’s to his benefit as well that this get done because Mr. Kemeny, from what he said, I’m satisfied he doesn’t want to go out and start offending again, and he needs some programming that will assist him with that. There’s other principles of sentencing as well, but his rehabilitation is very important because he’s still a relatively young man.”
Kemeny will remain in custody while the report is made.
His next court date is Feb. 7 to fix a date for Adams to deliver her sentence.
Follow Cornelia Naylor on Twitter @CorNaylor
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