Snow Removal Dispute Results in Arrest

A dispute over snow removal on Feb. 3 escalated into a threat against a property caretaker at a house on Huckleberry Hill Road, police said.

Andres Delgado, 56, 248 Huckleberry Hill Road, Avon, has been ordered not to initiate contact with the Mark Wilcox, the property caretaker, according to court documents. Police had arrested Delgado Feb. 3 on charges of criminal attempt to commit first-degree assault, first-degree reckless endangerment, second-degree threatening and disorderly conduct.

The court reduced his bond from $50,000 to $25,000 on Feb. 4 and recommended that he receive medical attention.

Wilcox arrived just before 10 a.m. on Feb. 3 to retrieve ladders in a storage barn on the land. He is responsible for snow removal at the home and plows for the homeowner, Peter McNutt, who lives in New York.

Wilcox told police that he knocked on the front door of the home to ask if the residents could move a vehicle that was blocking the barn. He said that Eileen McNutt, the sister of the homeowner and a resident of the house, told him to leave.

Wilcox said that Delgado, a man he has known for a couple years who also lives in the residence, came after him with two knives, making jabbing motions as if he was going to stab him. He told police Delgado slapped his upper body with one knife and held the other to his throat. Wilcox escaped to his car and called police and the homeowner to report the incident.

Delgado denied that he threatened Wilcox with knives, but told police that he was upset because Wilcox “pushed snow into the sidewalk, which he had already shoveled out” last Wednesday.

Elsee McEachin, 51, who visited the residence that morning, told police that Delgado had “obscene words” for the Wilcox and that she saw him strike Wilcox's shoulder with one of the knives and hit him with the flat side of the other. 

Four Avon police officers responded to the call and confiscated “two long stainless steel, brown-handled knives,”  along with a pocket knife and a “long metal object.”

No injuries were reported. Delgado is due in court again on Feb. 22 and scheduled to enter a plea.