A West Virginia man was sentenced to five years in prison this morning for having a teenager set fire to his Cranberry store to collect insurance money.
Thomas H. Smith II, 26, of Wheeling, was in substantial debt when on Jan. 9, 2007, he offered a 16-year-old store employee $5,000 to burn down his Play It Again Sports store. He then showed the boy how to use a heat gun to set cardboard on fire in a back room. Mr. Smith left the store on Route 19, and it later burned down.
After the fire, which caused more than $1million in damage to the four stores within the strip mall, Mr. Smith filed insurance claims for $30,000. As part of his sentence by Senior U.S. District Judge Gustave Diamond, Mr. Smith must pay more than $1.1 million in restitution.
He pleaded guilty to arson and insurance fraud and will be allowed to self-report to prison.
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