AFTON – Two men pleaded guilty Monday to breaking into a home and impulsively lighting it on fire while they were intoxicated, stealing an air conditioner as they left and leaving the two-story house to burn to the ground.
The Chenango County Sheriff’s Office arrested 25-year-old Eric A. Nelson and 21-year-old Felix J. Hartman both of Afton, June 4 and charged them with second degree burglary and third degree arson, both class C felonies.
The Afton, Coventry, Bainbridge and Harpursville Fire Departments responded to the fire at around 3:45 a.m. May 31 at 331 State Highway 41, but the blaze completely destroyed the home.
Appearing before Chenango County Court Judge W. Howard Sullivan Monday, the men admitted breaking into the house, which they said they thought was uninhabited, through a sliding glass door.
Nelson pleaded guilty to third degree burglary, a D felony, saying he entered the home in search of valuables. He was sentenced to one and a half to four and a half years in state prison.
Hartman pleaded guilty to third degree arson, a C felony. He told Sullivan he lit a small piece of paper hanging from a chair inside the home on fire and piled nearby firewood on it. Sheriff’s Lt. Richard Cobb testified just prior to the plea deal that Hartman told him that he was high and drunk at the time and couldn’t explain why he did it. He was sentenced to two to six years in state prison.
Both men said they “knew of” the Robinson family who owned the home, but thought the family had recently moved out. Cobb said the home belonged to a couple who was in the process of moving their items from the location to a newly-purchased property in the Coventry area. On the night of the fire, the couple was residing at their new address but thousands of dollars worth of property was still inside.
Both men were ordered to pay restitution for the damages in the amount of $342,720.88, with the first $12,250 being paid to the family for their stolen or lost possessions; the rest is to be paid to the insurance company covering the home.
They have to pay the money back within 12 months of being released from prison, at a minimum rate of $75 per month. With both men making the minimum payments each month, it would still take them more than 190 years to pay off the full amount.
Police said the men stole an air conditioner, food and other assorted items of smaller value.
Cobb testified the two men left a party earlier that night, angry over a personal dispute, and then stopped at the home.
When asked by the judge why the two went into the home in the first place, Nelson responded, “I don’t know. We were just drunk and disorderly is all.”
“I’d like to apologize for my actions to the owners and to the community,” he said.
Alan Gordon, Hartman’s public defender, told the court his client would have never committed such an act if it wasn’t for being under the influence of drugs and alcohol.