Roberto Argentaro: Gardener pleads guilty to threatening to burn ex’s Skinners Head house down
A gardener threatened to burn down his ex-partner’s house when asked to leave on Christmas Eve. When he was questioned by police, he said: “It’s a lyric from the Eminem song”.
Police & Courts
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A Dunoon gardener threatened to burn down his ex-partner’s house and later told police: “It’s a lyric from the Eminem song”.
Roberto Bartolo Argentaro pleaded guilty at Ballina Local Court on Thursday to breaching an AVO and intimidation.
The 47-year-old lived with his former partner for ten years at Skinners Head before they split in October, court documents state.
Argentaro’s former partner tried to remain friends with him however he was constantly showing up at her house uninvited, even after she told him to stop.
“When Argentaro is staying he will begin to harass the woman for sex … when she declines this is when Argentaro will become abusive,” police documents state.
Argentaro came to the woman’s house in an “aggravated state” and banged on the locked screen door on December 24.
He smashed a bottle on the pot plant outside the house when the woman asked him to leave, documents state.
“I will burn your house down,” Argentaro said.
When he saw the woman was about to call the police, he left.
Months later, Argentaro sent the woman threatening text messages about 11pm on May 7.
“F--k you. You ruined my life but karma will kill you,” he wrote. “I am so drunk. I will kill you before I die.”
Argentaro then went to the woman’s address “in a manic state,” police documents state.
The woman felt anxious and sometimes fearful of him and had an AVO put in place on June 8.
A few days later Argentaro’s Toyota HiLux drove past her house.
Argentaro was taken to Ballina Police Station on July 16, when they asked about the threat to burn her house down he said: “It’s a lyric from the Eminem song”.
Police imposed strict bail conditions. The court heard Argentaro has a limited criminal history.
Deference lawyer Tom Ivey said Argentaro previously suffered from a brain injury.
“Several years ago he was involved in a serious motorbike collision which affected his frontal lobe, these conditions cause him to be erratic and unpredictable,” documents state.
Magistrate Karen Stafford adjourned the case to September 21.
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