|
Devoted
Donor
Location: New England
|
Perhaps it isn't ecoterrorism. Perhaps it is... Chevy Cavalier backroad racers? WTF?
Quote:
Five men have been indicted on federal charges in connection with fires that destroyed or damaged 26 homes in a new housing subdivision last month in the most expensive case of residential arson in the state's history, officials announced today.
The United States attorney for Maryland, Allen F. Loucks, said the men were charged with arson, conspiracy to commit arson and aiding and abetting arson. The fire was considered a federal crime because it interfered with the interstate activities of the subdivision's developer, the Lennar Corporation of Miami, and its business partners, officials said.
Advertisement
The arson and conspiracy charges both carry mandatory minimum federal penalties of 5 to 20 years in prison, officials said.
At a press conference this afternoon, Mr. Loucks said the investigation was continuing and might lead to more charges. One other man has been arrested in connection with the fire, and the indictment said the conspiracy, which it dated to Aug. 1, included other persons "known and unknown."
The Dec. 6 fire destroyed 10 homes and damaged 16 others in the Hunters Brooke subdivision in Indian Head, a rural area of Charles County, near the Potomac River, south of Washington. Prosecutors estimated the damage at $10 million. None of the houses that were burned, which were in various states of completion, were occupied, and no one was injured. Prosecutors said the men had tried to set fire to 19 other empty homes as well.
Mr. Foulk and others who spoke at a press conference today shed no light on a possible motive for the blaze.
"What I have no idea is, what it's about," the Charles County sheriff, Frederick E. Davis, said. "You have crimes where you never figure out what the motive is."
Kevin Perkins, an agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Baltimore office, agreed that "what we continue to look at is the why."
Because the development had drawn opposition over its potential impact on wetlands, investigators initially wondered if the attack might have been the work of a radical environmental work. But less than two weeks after the fire, the authorities arrested a security guard at the complex. After that, a string of five more arrests was accompanied by glimpses of a more tangled set of motivations.
Investigators said the guard, Aaron L. Speed, 21, had been upset with the security company he worked for, Security Services of America, for showing "indifference" after the death of his infant son, according to a court affidavit filed earlier. Another defendant, Jeremy D. Parady, 20, was said to have been angry over being turned down for a job at the subdivision by its developer, the Lennar Corporation of Miami. Mr. Parady is a member of the volunteer fire department in the nearby town of Accokeek.
The other men charged in the new indictment were Patrick S. Walsh, 20, Michael M. Everhart, 20 and Roy T. McCann, 22, all residents of the area.
The man who has been charged in the case but who was not included in the indictment, Michael E. Gilbert, told investigators in December that the fire had been planned as a way of gaining notoriety for a gang to which several of the defendants belonged. An affidavit said the gang is known as the Family or the Unseen Cavaliers, a reference to Chevrolet Cavaliers and the group's interest in racing autos on the area's back roads.
Mr. Gilbert told investigators that Mr. Walsh had approached him in November with a plan to "make the Family bigger and more famous" by "setting 'something' on fire," according to an affidavit.
Last month, a prosecutor suggested that race could have been a motive for the fires, noting that many of the homebuyers in Hunters Brooke are black. Investigators also said that two of the suspects, all of whom are white, had made racial statements during their questioning.
But the indictment made no mention of bias, and Mr. Loucks declined to comment beyond saying that race was "another aspect that we're still investigating."
|
The New York Times > National > Maryland Indicts 5 in Fire That Swept 26 New Homes
__________________
I can't read your signature. Sorry.
|