TORONTO – A high school dropout with drug and psychiatric problems was sentenced to 10 years in prison Thursday for killing a college hockey star nearly two years ago.
Nicholas Crowdis, 24, was also designated a long-term offender, which means he will be under the supervision of corrections officials for 10 years after he is released from prison.
Crowdis was convicted of manslaughter last fall for hitting Michael Serba with a brick and stomping on his face three times in Toronto in November 2006. The jury acquitted Crowdis of the more serious charge of second-degree murder.
Crowdis has spent three years in pre-trial custody and with the standard two-for-one credit has four years left in his sentence.
The attack on the 25-year-old Serba was "savage and without pity," noted Superior Court Justice Christopher Speyer. The judge accepted a joint submission by the Crown and defence in imposing the 10-year-manslaughter sentence.
The long-term offender designation is effectively a stricter form of parole.
Serba was in a bar with friends that night after returning home for a visit from the Vermont college where he was studying for his MBA.
The jury heard Serba was withdrawing money from a bank machine when he was sucker-punched by a friend of Crowdis. Serba went into the bar to get his friends and they went after the attacker.
While in a dark laneway near a west end subway station, Serba was attacked by Crowdis with the brick.
The former captain of his college hockey team died as a result of multiple facial fractures.
Crowdis had no prior criminal record. But he had a history of crack cocaine use and had been admitted to hospital four times for psychiatric treatment.
In contrast, Serba was "a young man of superior talent and accomplishment," said Speyer. "The sense of grief and loss felt by his family was palpable."
The family expressed shock at the jury’s verdict of manslaughter last fall.
The frustration was noted again by Serba’s father outside court Thursday.
"What I learned is how the system gets manipulated by certain people," said Jim Serba. He described the trial testimony of Crowdis as being concocted.
Serba struggled with his emotions as he spoke about the good qualities of his son. "What he would have done in the future was snuffed out," he said.
The family has started an annual charity golf tournament to remember Michael Serba.
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