Metro Detroit's arson crackdown goes up in smoke
Monday, July 18, 2011 at 09:06AM
Few cases prosecuted; those convicted often avoid jail
Doug Guthrie and Santiago Esparza/ The Detroit News
Detroit— Overloaded state prison and justice systems aren't making enough room for convicted arsonists, often treating firebugs to light sentences of probation or less, countyprosecutors and insurance industry officials warn.
And the first conviction in a crackdown on arson for profit initiated six months ago by Wayne County's prosecutor with financial backing from the insurance industry might serve as an example of just how lightly the crime is treated statewide — even in a county with runaway arson troubles.
In December, charges against Giovanni Naccarato were among the first announced by Prosecutor Kym Worthy to be handled by an assistant hired with a $155,000 grant from the insurance industry-supported Michigan Arson Prevention Committee. Naccarato faced multiple 20-year felonies for setting fire in 2007 to a Lincoln Park apartment building.
He pleaded no contest, but Wayne County Circuit Judge Margie Braxton gave the 44-year-old Dearborn Heights man three years' probation last month. The sentence was far below Naccarato's state-mandated sentencing guideline of a minimum of almost four years and a maximum of more than six years. Worthy vowed to appeal.
The fire was set to collect insurance. No residents were injured because they were ordered out of the two-story brick structure for insect fumigation before the fire was set. Firefighters responding to the intense blaze found containers partially filled with gasoline in a stairwell. One firefighter suffered minor injuries.
Naccarato will pay restitution, the amount to be determined at a July 25 hearing before Braxton.
Worthy had warned when announcing her crackdown last year that the state's justice and prison systems don't put a high enough priority on the crime insurance authorities say might account for more than two-thirds of about $663 million in fire damage claims filed in Michigan last year. They are claims that affect how much everyone pays for home and business insurance.
Meanwhile, the number serving time for arson in Michigan prisons is at its lowest level in more than a decade. There were 260 inmates behind prison bars for arson in 2009, the latest accounting of prison populations available from the Michigan Department of Corrections. The prisoner count has steadily declined almost 30 percent from a high of 365 in 2003. The number was 302 in 1999.
This comes as FBI crime stats for Detroit show arson up, with 1,082 incidents reported in 2010 and 636 in 2009.
Wayne County led the state in 2010 with insurance companies paying $237.8 million for damage caused by arsons or suspicious blazes. A wide margin separates second-place Macomb County, with $112.7 million in damage from arson and suspicious fires, according to data from the Insurance Institute of Michigan.
Worthy said some might see arson as a Detroit problem without considering the spreading influence of the bad economy, massive foreclosure numbers and home abandonment on other communities as well.
"What it comes down to is the state of Michigan doesn't take arson very serious," Worthy said. "People know they can get away with it, so they do it."
Worthy looks to Lansing's legislators to make changes in the law to give prosecutors and judges clear direction and a way to distinguish sentences between major arson crimes and lesser incidents.
One proposal calls for distinguishing arson in degrees, with seven steps progressing in severity from a 90-day misdemeanor for setting a fire of less than $200 in value to first-degree arson that would carry up to a life sentence for setting a fire for profit at a multiunit dwelling or that causes injury.
The number charged with arson in Wayne County over five years has remained about the same — 125 to 130, according to Assistant Prosecutor Maria Miller. Statistics from Worthy's arson initiative won't be available until the end of the year.
Oakland County Prosecutor Jessica Cooper said she has watched in frustration over the past decade as the prison system has diverted more nonviolent offenders from prison sentences toward shorter county jail terms and probation, sometimes with alternative punishments such as community service.
Oakland County had $19.2 million in arson and suspicious fire damage in 2010, ranking it fourth among Michigan counties.
"It is troublesome that a crime like arson, that can be a major crime in terms of cost and potential violence, is considered a nonviolent crime that results in low sentencing guidelines or recommendations," Cooper said.
"But realistically, where are you going to put them? MDOC has said we only have so much room at the inn. Priorities are set, and criminal acts that don't involve a repeat offender or blood and gore aren't considered as important."
Prison officials argue they haven't targeted particular crimes such as arson for softer sentence recommendations, but arson offenders normally facing only two- to four-year maximum sentences likely have been affected by a state prison program that gives $30 million annually to divert convicts with low minimum sentence recommendations to county jails along with probation, community service and restitution.
"We have not focused on arson," Michigan Department of Corrections spokesman Russ Marlan said. "But 35 to 40 percent of those who fall into what we call 'straddle-cell' guidelines (within six months of the one-year maximum taken by county jails) are diverted to county programs, and arson very likely is affected."
'No blood on the floor'
Frank Scafidi, public affairs director for the California-based National Insurance Crime Bureau and a former FBI agent, said in some areas such as Metro Detroit, authorities have almost resigned themselves to the fact that no room is available in prisons for arsonists. And he believes perpetrators have caught on to that fact.
"A few years ago, you might have gotten three years for this sort of thing. Insurance fraud overall — a goodly lot of it is arson — doesn't excite a lot of folks. There is no blood on the floor," Scafidi said. "It's frustrating."
Insurance fraud and arson are hard to prosecute, and difficult economic realities have made arson a low priority, Scafidi said. He blames the nationwide get-tough-on-crime movement of the 1990s for increased sentencing guidelines elsewhere, especially on drug dealers, that spurred the construction of new prisons that are now overcrowded and underfunded.
"Those pigeons are still in the roost, and those tougher sentencing laws mean the prisons are bursting at the seams," Scafidi said.
The economic downturn has caused cash-strapped authorities to retroactively reduce sentences for some, such as some drug couriers serving life in prison. The recent federal Fair Sentencing Act also recommended the reduction of tough prison terms for crack cocaine violations.
Wayne County getting worse
There were 11,326 arson and suspicious fires in Michigan in 2010, according to the insurance institute.
That's slightly less than the 11,767 reported in 2009, but in Wayne County, which reported by far the most arson and suspicious fires in the state, the numbers continue to inch upward.
The estimated $237.8 million in 2010 damage from arson and suspicious fires in Wayne County accounts for 81 percent of total fire losses in the county, according to Insurance Institute of Michigan spokeswoman Lori Conarton.
"Those are staggering numbers," Conarton said. "That is why we had to be proactive. We have never done anything as big as the Wayne County project (with Worthy's office)."
Fires in the region's many abandoned houses boost the numbers.
Only the charred shell of a house remains at 3336 16th St. in Detroit after what neighbors say was a suspicious fire that gutted the vacant home last week. Detroit Fire Department arson investigators had yet to identify the cause as of Friday.
Neighbors said arson fires on the street near Martin Luther King Boulevard are common. They point to several homes dotting the street that have suffered fires.
"I worry about it," said DeAngela Lewis, who has lived in the neighborhood since August.
"I have kids," the parent of six said. "I'd like to see the city do something about these (burned) houses."
Tips, rewards lead to arrests
At times, the insurance industry has stepped in to assist budget-strapped law enforcement efforts to reduce Michigan arsons, offering rewards on tips leading to arrests or providing arson investigators with crime-fighting tools.
"We need to keep showing that people (arsonists) will be prosecuted for these crimes," Conarton said.
In 1975, the Michigan Arson Prevention Committee, which is made up of insurance agents and police and fire investigators and officials, paid a single $500 reward that led to the arrests of eight arson suspects. In 2010, the committee paid $35,000 for tips that helped arrest 19. In total, the committee has paid $741,000 for tips that helped arrest 1,154 arson suspects.
In Roseville, a dog that can detect the presence of accelerants, such as gasoline, used to set fires was donated to the Fire Department in 2009 by State Farm Insurance. Training the dog, named Windy, and a handler costs $20,000.
The Macomb County municipality generally has fewer than five arson cases a year, but Roseville Fire Marshal Craig Robertson said he and the dog help investigate another 50 to 60 cases annually throughout Metro Detroit.
"We have a lot of people laid off," Robertson said, a problem that contributes to the heightened risk of for-profit arson in a region hard hit by the economy. "We have a lot of foreclosed homes. It's a problem."
dguthrie@detnews.com
(313) 222-2548
