BELLBROOK — His Tesla Cybertruck is now damaged and costing nearly $10,000 in repairs, but a Bellbrook man told police he doesn’t want to press charges against the woman arrested for allegedly vandalizing the silver vehicle parked in his driveway.
“It’s a really weird situation,” Daniel Herres said Wednesday. “You never think something like that is going to happen until it happens.”
Here’s what Herres said happened Monday afternoon to the new 2024 vehicle he uses to run his ice cream business, Cyber Cream Dayton:
He was at home when he heard what sounded like glass breaking. His Ring video camera recorded the sound of someone breaking the window of the car, which Tesla says has shatterproof glass and sells for anywhere from $116,990 used to $146,800 new, according to a quick scan of car dealerships like Autotrader and CarGurus.com in Dayton.
The woman pulled into the driveway, got out, and began breaking the car windows. When she was done, she got into her car, pulled out of the driveway, and drove away.
Police said he had broken all but one window.
“There were two children in the back seat and they were both crying. They had just witnessed something very strange and bizarre happen,” Herres said.
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Sugarcreek Twp. police, who found and arrested the woman minutes later in the area of the Cracker Barrel access road at Wilmington Pike and Feedwire Road, identified her as 29-year-old Courtney Piotrowski of Richmond, Indiana.
Police said that before the arrest, Piotrowski went to a neighbor’s house on the same street as Herres and dropped two propane gas canisters on the property. The neighbor told police that Piotrowski yelled at him before speeding away.
Bellbrook police issued him a court summons on a misdemeanor criminal damage charge.
Meanwhile, Piotrowski is scheduled to appear in Xenia Town Court on July 29 on charges that Sugarcreek Twp. police say he is involved in. Officers, in an additional police incident report about the vandalism involving Herres, said he and his vehicle were “connected to recent criminal damage reports off Ferry Road in Sugarcreek Twp. and several traffic complaints in the city and county.”
Herres said the damage to his cybertruck will force him to close his ice cream truck business for the rest of the summer. He said he started the business in May.
“Within 30 seconds, our business was destroyed,” he said.
Herres said he had never seen the woman before Monday.
“I feel so sorry for the kids, and we just hope the best for everybody, we want everybody to get through this well,” he said.
