better life? A 19-year-old illegal immigrant from Honduras was sentenced Friday to four years in state prison for deliberately setting a fire last May at a multi-family house in Morristown because he was angered at being thrown out of a party.
Fernando Inestroza, who performed odd jobs to earn a living, apologized to state Superior Court Judge Stuart Minkowitz for putting lives at risk by setting the fire at the Sussex Avenue home around 4:30 a.m. May 16.
Defense lawyer Michael Fletcher asked for a three-year term and county Assistant Prosecutor Julie Serfess asked for a five-year term on the guilty plea that Inestroza entered last year to aggravated arson.
The judge imposed four years. Inestroza will get credit for nine months he already has served in the county jail and will be deported to his native Honduras upon release from prison, Fletcher said.
At the time of the blaze, Inestroza was a tenant of the house next door but was tracked down to a house in East Orange within a few days of the crime. Several town firefighters had rushed into the building to evacuate tenants, and one firefighter was injured when part of the home collapsed and knocked off his helmet.
Inestroza had become intoxicated and offensive at the party so others told him to leave. He lighted a piece of paper with a butane lighter and put it in a plastic garbage can on a second-floor wooden deck of the structure, he acknowledged.
http://www.dailyrecord.com/article/20110218/NJNEWS/102180316/Illegal-immigrant-gets-four-years-for-starting-fire-in-Morristown
Fernando Inestroza, who performed odd jobs to earn a living, apologized to state Superior Court Judge Stuart Minkowitz for putting lives at risk by setting the fire at the Sussex Avenue home around 4:30 a.m. May 16.
Defense lawyer Michael Fletcher asked for a three-year term and county Assistant Prosecutor Julie Serfess asked for a five-year term on the guilty plea that Inestroza entered last year to aggravated arson.
The judge imposed four years. Inestroza will get credit for nine months he already has served in the county jail and will be deported to his native Honduras upon release from prison, Fletcher said.
At the time of the blaze, Inestroza was a tenant of the house next door but was tracked down to a house in East Orange within a few days of the crime. Several town firefighters had rushed into the building to evacuate tenants, and one firefighter was injured when part of the home collapsed and knocked off his helmet.
Inestroza had become intoxicated and offensive at the party so others told him to leave. He lighted a piece of paper with a butane lighter and put it in a plastic garbage can on a second-floor wooden deck of the structure, he acknowledged.
http://www.dailyrecord.com/article/20110218/NJNEWS/102180316/Illegal-immigrant-gets-four-years-for-starting-fire-in-Morristown