COBLESKILL — It took a jury only 14 minutes today to find the owner of the Newberry Square building on Main Street guilty of violating village code by failing to replace three storefront windows after they were mysteriously broken five months ago.

Charalambos "Harry" Ioannou, whose corporation owns the mostly vacant building in the downtown business district, was found innocent of a second charge alleging he failed to maintain the glazing or keep glass free of holes or cracks.

Village Justice Richard Hamm set sentencing for Aug. 19 at 3 p.m.

The day after village police discovered the plate-glass windows were broken the night of March 1 or early March 2, Ioannou said he removed the broken glass and covered them with sheets of wood panels.

Over the months that the front windows of the landmark three-story brick building at 824 Main St. remained boarded up, village officials, including representatives of the historic district board and the business and community group Cobleskill Partnership Inc., have complained the building's appearance detracted from the central business district.

Ioannou, who lives in Charlton, could face a maximum fine of $1,000 per day since village Code Enforcement Officer Michael Piccolo notified him March 13 that he must remedy the problem, according to Hamm. Although unlikely, according to court observers, that could potentially add up to a $146,000 fine.

Ioannou estimated repairing the windows would have cost about $3,500, but he insisted today that "temporarily" covering them with sheets of waferboard complied with the law.

During a break in the trial, Ioannou said Piccolo wouldn't give him the three months he said he needed to get the repair money, because the only tenant in his building is a Schoharie County ARC office.

During a trial that lasted about three hours, including jury selection, Ioannou's attorney, Edward Wildove, unsuccessfully sought to let the jury hear an alternative section of the state's Uniform Fire and Building Code that Wildove argued did not require glass to be replaced in partially vacant buildings.

Hamm disallowed presenting that argument in favor of village attorney Meredith Savitt's position that the section Wildove cited only applied to preventing unauthorized access to vacant portions of buildings.

Much of the detailed trial testimony centered on whether the wood panels made of pressed wood chips should be referred to as waferboard or plywood, as they were initially referred to in earlier court appearances and documents.

The type of wood sheets did not matter, Piccolo contended during his testimony. He and Savitt argued that the covering did not comply with the law requiring windows to be kept secure and weather tight.