Austin Cyr to serve 1 year in jail

Plea deal for larceny, forgery charges

TORRINGTON — A 23-year-old Harwinton man will serve a year in jail on larceny and forgery charges after accepting a plea deal that wiped out many other pending charges in the case.

Austin Cyr pleaded guilty in Superior Court in Torrington Wednesday to fifth-degree larceny, third-degree forgery, attempt to commit fourth-degree larceny and second-degree failure to appear. He received a fiveyear sentence, suspended after a year served, to be followed by three years of

probation for those charges.

He also pleaded guilty to second-degree breach of peace, second-degree failure to appear, fifth-degree larceny and third-degree forgery, for which he received six months in jail, suspended after three months. That sentence will run concurrently with the one imposed in the larceny case.

Those eight charges, out of nearly three dozen filed against Cyr in 2018, were the only ones for which he was convicted under the plea deal. The remaining charges will be nolled, meaning they will not be prosecuted, according to a Superior Court clerk.

Cryr was ready to plead guilty at his last court appearance on March 6, but prosecuting attorney Jonathan Knight said a plea wouldn’t be accepted until the court received input from the victims.

“The (guilty plea) has been conveyed, but victims have a right to be advised,” of the results of the case, Superior Court Judge John A. Danaher III said at the the time.

Cyr has been in the New Haven Correctional Center since Jan. 30 , according to Department of Corrections records. Information on where he will serve his sentence was not available.

Cyr’s encounters with law enforcement date back to at least 2012, when Cyr, who was 16 at the time, was reported missing while on his way to the Connecticut Children's Hospital in Hartford. He was found in Hartford nearly a week later.

In 2017, Torrington police and emergency workers were dispatched to Alvord Park on a call about an injured male. Cyr was later found in the parking lot of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church on Torringford West Street. Torringford School, which is across the street from the church, went into a “secure place exercise” as a result of the incident. Such an exercise secures the building to protect students and staff inside.

When police located Cyr, he told police he had a knife and would assault officers if they approached and create a “suicide by cop” situation, according to a report.

After this incident, Cyr was charged with assault on an officer, possession of a controlled substance, possession of drug paraphernalia, possession in a school zone, interfering with an officer and breach of peace, according to the report.

In February 2014, Cyr received a suspended sentence of one year in prison on a 2013 charge of interfering with an officer. In October 2014, he was sentenced to six months in prison on a violation of probation charge, online court records show. In 2017, Cyr was found guilty again of interfering with an officer and received a suspended sentence of a year in prison, according to online court records.

Cyr