Former Professor Is Indicted in ‘Arson Spree’ in California

A erstwhile assemblage prof has been indicted connected charges that helium acceptable 4 wildfires successful nationalist forests portion connected an “arson spree” successful California this summer, prosecutors said.

The erstwhile professor, Gary Stephen Maynard, 47, was charged with 4 counts of arson to national property, the acting U.S. lawyer for the Eastern District of California, Phillip A. Talbert, announced connected Thursday. Some of the fires were ignited down firefighters arsenic they worked to extinguish the flames of the Dixie fire, which consumed more than 960,000 acres arsenic 1 of the largest wildfires successful California history.

According to a transcript of the indictment, Mr. Maynard is accused of having acceptable the Cascade and Everitt fires successful July and the Ranch and Conard fires successful August. He has besides been charged with mounting timber ablaze, according to the indictment, which was filed connected Thursday.

The fires were successful the vicinity of the Dixie fire, successful areas of the Shasta Trinity National Forest and the Lassen National Forest. The fires were extinguished earlier they could destruct immoderate buildings.

If convicted, Mr. Maynard faces a maximum statutory punishment of 20 years successful situation and a $250,000 good for each number of arson.

He is being held successful Sacramento County Main Jail, and his arraignment is scheduled to beryllium held virtually connected Nov. 22, said Lauren Horwood, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

“Mr. Maynard has consistently denied the allegations and helium volition participate a ceremonial plea of not blameworthy astatine his proceeding adjacent week,” Hannah Labaree, a lawyer for Mr. Maynard, said successful a telephone interrogation connected Friday.

In California, astir 10 percent of wildfires each twelvemonth are acceptable connected purpose, according to Cal Fire, the state’s largest occurrence agency.

The number of arson arrests jumped past year, with 120 arrests reported by Cal Fire successful 2020, compared with 70 successful 2019.

Before the indictment was handed down, Mr. Maynard had been charged successful a transgression ailment with “willfully mounting occurrence to onshore owned by oregon nether the jurisdiction of the United States.” That document, filed successful August, described however Mr. Maynard was tracked down and tied to immoderate of the fires acceptable adjacent 1 of the state’s largest conflagrations.

On July 20, a idiosyncratic riding a upland motorcycle called 911 to study seeing fume connected the occidental slope of Mount Shasta, according to the complaint. Firefighters enactment it retired earlier it could dispersed to much than 200 quadrate feet, the ailment said.

An arson researcher who went to the country recovered a antheral aboriginal identified arsenic Mr. Maynard trying to escaped his car from a heavy rut, and recovered burned paper and a lucifer astatine the site, the papers said.

Mr. Maynard, who was an adjunct module subordinate astatine Santa Clara University from September 2019 to December 2020, and who had besides taught criminology and sociology astatine Chapman and Sonoma State Universities, was surviving retired of his conveyance astatine the time, the papers said.

On July 21, a occurrence unit connected the Everitt Memorial Highway spotted the glow of different occurrence connected the occidental slope of Mount Shasta, astir an hr southbound of the Oregon border, the filing said. It was contained to little than an acre successful size, it said. An researcher noticed that the tyre marks successful the ungraded were akin to the impressions astatine the erstwhile fire, it said.

Investigators yet tracked down Mr. Maynard by utilizing his nutrient stamp transactions, telephone records and a instrumentality they attached to his car successful the parking batch of a restaurant, the papers said.

On Aug. 7, Mr. Maynard’s conveyance was recovered successful Lassen National Forest, wherever prosecutors accidental helium acceptable 2 fires, astir 3 miles apart, that grew to fractional an acre to 1 acre successful size earlier being extinguished, the ailment said.

It appeared that Mr. Maynard “was successful the midst of an arson-setting spree,” the ailment said. He was arrested connected suspicion of unauthorized introduction into a closed exigency area. When agents told him that his tyre tracks were recovered adjacent wildfires, helium “denied mounting immoderate fires,” the ailment said.

In a memorandum requesting that Mr. Maynard beryllium kept successful detention, Mr. Talbert wrote that “words cannot describe” the further hazard that the fires posed to the firefighters, and helium noted however hard it would beryllium to support tracking Mr. Maynard.

“Where Maynard went, fires started,” Mr. Talbert wrote. “Not conscionable once, but implicit and implicit again.”