A Little Rock property owner accused of arson, insurance fraud and theft pleaded guilty to reduced charges on Monday in exchange for one year on probation.
Kittie Louise Payton, 55, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor counts of theft and attempted insurance fraud and theft. Her plea agreement with the Department of Insurance, negotiated by her attorney, Bill James, also requires Payton to pay a $5,000 fine. If she completes probation without getting into more trouble with the law, Payton can have her record expunged.
The charges stem from a Nov. 1, 2016, house fire at 3326 Pye Road near Sweet Home that destroyed the empty rental home that Payton had owned since receiving it as an inheritance after her mother died in January 2011.
The witness who reported the fire, Perry Daniels, told investigators that he had seen a car driving away from the house just before the fire grew large enough to see, and the subsequent probe found that gasoline had been poured on the floor and ignited.
Payton told investigators the house was empty but that she had just rented it to someone named Ebonnie Banks, according to an arrest affidavit. Payton claimed that she'd never met Banks before the woman came to inquire about renting the home.
Payton provided her insurance company, Allstate, a copy of a rental contract that had been enacted on the day of the fire so the company began to pay her monthly checks, ultimately totaling $22,750.
Payton was arrested after her cousin, Lavenia Bell, as interviewed by a private investigator working for an insurance company and said that Payton had told her she had set the fire because she couldn't sell the home and it was infested with termites. The car seen the night of the fire matched a rental car that Payton's husband, Chancelor Booker, had gotten for Payton after she had been in a car wreck, Bell told the investigator.
Bell also told the investigator that Banks was not a stranger, but actually the name of a woman who worked with Payton, contradicting Payton's account that she had rented the property to a woman she had never met before.
Authorities got an arrest warrant in February, and Payton was arrested in April. Property records show Payton has sold the property.
Metro on 10/04/2018
*CORRECTION: A previous version of this article incorrectly described how the state Department of Insurance received information from Lavenia Bell. Bell, Payton’s cousin, was interviewed by a private investigator working for an insurance company, who provided that interview to authorities, according to court records.