An Island Falls man was sentenced Thursday to 27 years in prison with all but nine suspended for burning down his ex-girlfriend’s Stacyville home in December 2019.
The woman’s dog perished in the fire but she was not injured.
Bud L. Nason, 49, was indicted on one count of arson, a Class A crime, in September 2020 by a Penobscot County grand jury, according to the Penobscot County District Attorney’s office.
In addition to prison time, Superior Court Justice Ann Murray also sentenced Nason to four years of probation. If he were to violate the conditions of his probation, Nason could be sent back to prison for the remainder of his sentence, up to 18 years.
The judge also ordered Nason to pay the victim, who lost everything in the fire and did not have insurance, $12,765 in restitution.
Nason’s attorney Jeffrey Silverstein declined to comment on the case.
Nason pleaded no contest to the charge last year. No contest pleas result in convictions.
The blaze at the home on Station Road was reported at 1:38 a.m. Dec. 21, 2019, by a neighbor, according to Assistant District Attorney R. Christopher Almy, who prosecuted the case. When firefighters arrived, the house was engulfed in flames.
It was one of 14 fires that month that left two people dead and at least 19 people homeless.
A fire investigator’s dog named Harry, who is trained to detect accelerants, searched the debris a few days after the fire. The dog alerted investigators to the front porch steps, where a sample of the debris analyzed by the Maine State Crime Lab contained gasoline, Almy said.
The neighbor who reported the fire told investigators that shortly before the fire started, he saw a small SUV driving by the house very slowly with its lights off. He also reported seeing a trail of fire leading to the front steps.
Nason at that time drove a 2015 silver Hyundai Santa Fe, which is a small SUV, the prosecutor said.
The defendant allegedly told police that he went to the hospital in Millinocket about midnight the day of the fire because he was in kidney failure, was a diabetic and was vomiting blood. Nason allegedly called his father at 2:26 a.m. to say he was at the hospital.
But an analysis of Nason’s cell phone showed the phone traveled that night to the Stacyville area and stayed there from 1:06 a.m. until 1:45 a.m., according to Almy. It was at the fire scene at least twice between 1:26 a.m. and 1:28 a.m.
Investigators confronted Nason with that information in May 2020. Nason allegedly told them that he did not remember setting the fire. He speculated that he’d blacked out and did not remember what happened but told police that he took full responsibility.
Nason had been held at the Penobscot County Jail since September 2021. His $7,500 bail posted on the arson charge was revoked after he was charged with violating conditions of his release, drunken driving and disorderly conduct.
He pleaded guilty to those charges Thursday and was sentenced to serve time concurrently with the arson charge. Because the drunken driving charge was his third conviction in the past 10 years, Nason’s driver’s license was suspended for six years.