An Ex-professor Was Given a Sentence for Starting at Least Seven Fires During California’s Worst Wildfire Season Ever
During a year with some of California’s worst wildfires, including starting a fire near the 2021 Dixie Fire, a former criminal justice professor set at least seven fires, prosecutors said. The person was sentenced to five years and three months in jail on Thursday.
Gary Stephen Maynard, who is 49 years old, admitted to setting three fires on government property in February. In their sentence memo, prosecutors said that Maynard set fires on purpose to hurt people, which was both wanton and intentional.
A statement from U.S. Attorney Phillip A. Talbert about the sentence said, “He purposely made a dangerous situation even more dangerous by setting some of his fires behind the men and women fighting the Dixie Fire, which could have cut off any chance of escape.”
Police caught Maynard in August 2021 after following his black Kia Soul for hundreds of miles through Northern California. prosecutors wrote that he filmed himself setting fires, but he hasn’t been charged with that crime yet.
The first time the police saw Maynard was during the Cascade Fire in July 2021, which was reported on the western slopes of Mount Shasta. According to earlier reports in the Bee, the fire in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest in Siskiyou County was stopped before it could grow beyond 100 to 200 square feet.
Previous reports said that the next day, detectives found tire marks that looked like they came from a Kia hatchback near a fire in Mount Shasta that was going by Everitt Memorial Highway.
The police put a tracking device on Maynard’s car and watched how he used his EBT card to follow him around California. He was found close to where the Ranch and Conard fires started in the Lassen National Forest.
He was finally caught putting out fires in an evacuation zone behind firefighters fighting the Dixie Fire, which is California’s second-biggest wildfire.
A sentencing memorandum made by Maynard’s lawyers says that he had untreated mental health problems and was homeless when the arson spree started. The defense wrote that he has been trying to treat his illnesses while in jail and will continue to do so in prison.
Maynard taught at a number of places, such as Sonoma State University, where he specialized in criminal justice, cults, and bad behavior, and Santa Clara University, where he was an adjunct professor of sociology.
