A 43-year-old Little Rock woman was arrested Monday after a federal grand jury indicted her in connection with a string of arsons at Forest Place Apartments that caused millions of dollars in damage, permanently displaced 90 people, injured two firefighters and prompted a lawsuit.
Lacey Rae Moore, who made her first appearance in federal court Monday, is charged with starting seven fires at the Little Rock apartment complex between February and June last year. A former resident of the complex, she is also the lead and only named plaintiff in the federal lawsuit filed over the fires.
Attorneys who filed the lawsuit, which seeks class-action status to represent all apartment residents affected by the fires, filed a motion on Feb. 3, three days before the grand jury indicted Moore, asking that she be replaced as the lead plaintiff by another resident who better represents all the plaintiffs.
An attorney who filed the lawsuit, Benjamin Kent of Little Rock, didn’t return an after-hours telephone message left at his office nor respond to an email sent to his work account Monday evening.
Moore’s indictment on five counts of arson, two counts of arson resulting in injury and one count of possession of an unregistered destructive device came after the string of deliberately set fires between Feb. 24, 2013, and June 28, 2013, left residents on edge at the apartment complex at 1421 N. University Ave., near Cantrell Road.
The fires prompted Maxus Properties Inc. of North Kansas City, Mo., which manages the apartment complex and is named as the defendant in the lawsuit, to offer a $35,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction in the arson. Last July, the city ordered Maxus to establish a fire-watch team and upgrade security and fire-protection systems.
Local authorities worked with federal investigators to determine a suspect in the fires.
“Today’s arrest of this arsonist is the result of excellent investigative work by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms agents, Little Rock Fire Department fire marshal’s office, Arkansas State Police fire marshal’s office and Little Rock Police Department,” said Christopher Thyer, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas. “Through their diligence and expertise, the mystery that caused millions of dollars worth of damage, destroyed apartment buildings, displaced scores of residents and injured two firefighters has been solved.”
The May 16 fire, which is at the center of the lawsuit filed last June in Pulaski County Circuit Court but later transferred to U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas, was the largest of the seven, causing $4 million in damage and leading to 130 residents being evacuated by firefighters and 79 people permanently displaced, according to a news release from Thyer’s office.
The lawsuit said 34 apartments were destroyed and 150 people suffered property damage in the May 16 fire. Moore was a resident of the apartment complex at the time of the fire and her apartment “sustained extensive damages”, according to the lawsuit.
A June 28 fire resulted in the evacuation of between 75 and 100 people and permanently displaced 11 more people, the news release said.
The indictment, which was unsealed after Moore’s arrest, also tied her to fires on Feb. 24, Feb. 25, May 15, June 4 and June 22. The May 16 and June 4 fires caused injuries to a firefighter, the indictment said.
The indictment contends that Moore “maliciously damaged and attempted to damage and destroy by means of fire and explosive materials Forest Place Apartments.”
An eighth count accuses Moore of knowingly possessing, on or about July 1, 2013, a “firearm, to wit, a destructive device which is an incendiary device and bomb” as defined by the federal code and which wasn’t registered to her.
Neither the indictment nor the news release says why she is purported to have set the fires. A Little Rock Fire Department spokesman declined to comment, saying his agency had agreed that Thyer’s office would release the information.
Moore pleaded innocent to the charges at a hearing Monday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Beth Deere, according to the news release. A detention hearing will be held at 11 a.m. Wednesday, also before Deere. A trial date was set for March 11 before U.S. District Judge Billy Roy Wilson. Moore was being held Monday night in the Pulaski County jail.
If convicted, Moore faces from seven to 40 years on each of the two arson causing injury charges and from five to 20 years on each of the five other arson charges, according to the news release. Possessing a destructive device carries a possible prison sentence of no more than 10 years. Each count also carries a possible fine not exceeding $250,000.
Information for this report was contributed by Chad Day and Spencer Willems of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 02/11/2014