The former roommate of a Vic High school teacher accused of criminal harassment says allegations against Frank Canacari are true.
He knows them to be true because Canacari openly talked about breaking into two women’s apartments, taking items and sending harassing phone calls and emails, Terry Bogue testified on Tuesday in Victoria provincial court.
Canacari faces two counts of criminal harassment and two counts of unlawfully being in a dwelling house related to a woman in Esquimalt and a woman in Saanich.
Bogue said despite not having lived together more than a few weeks in March 2010, Canacari would share with him details while stalking two women he dated.
Bogue told the court that Canacari said he got one woman’s address by going into her purse and getting her driver’s licence. He went over to her house when it was vacant, entered through an open door and took photos inside her home. He then came home and showed Bogue the photos.
“Why would Mr. Canacari show you this?” asked Crown prosecutor Chandra Fisher.
“Because he’s upset because she’d never tell him where she lived. This was his way of getting back (at her),” Bogue replied.
He told Judge Lorna-Jeanne Harvey that Canacari also told him he paid a sex trade worker $10 to call the woman in the middle of the night “to horrify her.”
The second victim, Erin Meyer, testified earlier Tuesday.
Bogue told the court in May 2010 Canacari was upset that his brief relationship with Meyer was crumbling, and believed it to be because she had reconnected with an ex-boyfriend.
Around May 15, Canacari staked out West Bay Marina, believing Meyer to be there with her ex for the night, Bogue said.
Overnight, Canacari used a house key in Meyer’s gym bag to go into her apartment. Bogue said an upset Canacari told him he took a pack of cigarettes from her place, and used her computer to send an anonymous email to Meyer denigrating her ex-boyfriend.
Bogue contacted Meyer on May 20, after the incident, and they went to Victoria police together.
When asked why he didn’t contact police sooner about the stalking, Bogue told the court that he had threatened to, and Canacari said, “It’s none of their businesses, it’s my business. … I’m smarter than them, what are they going to do?”
Canacari was arrested in June 2010 at Vic High while he was teaching. He has not been back in a classroom since.
On Wednesday, officers from the Victoria and Saanich police departments testified.
Chris Gillen, owner of Dial-A-Geek computer services, also testified in court Wednesday that Canacari contacted his company, asking to remove “illegal material or incriminating material” from his computer. Gillan said Canacari claimed the material to be linked to his roommate.
Meyer spoke to CTV News outside of the Victoria Law Courts Tuesday, saying she still worries for her safety. “I still look behind me and I still take note of everybody that is behind me. Yes, I was very, very afraid, very fearful, and it just really messes with your whole sense of well-being and security.”
Canacari has been on unpaid medical leave from the Greater Victoria School District since June 2010, and he no longer holds a teaching certificate.
The trial against Canacari is expected to last through the end of this week.
kslavin@saanichnews.com