Judge Mark Pasquariello sentenced 50-year-old Lonnie Durfee to one year at the Berkshire County House of Correction on Wednesday on a single count of burning personal property.
In an unagreed plea previously presented to Judge Paul Smyth, the Berkshire District Attorney’s Office requested the court to sentence Durfee to the maximum penalty of one year. Defense Council requested time served. Smyth ordered Durfee to serve one year and the defendant withdrew his plea.
On Wednesday, Durfee appeared before Pasquariello and opted to accept the plea.
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“The use of fire has a deeply rooted association with political and civil rights intimidation. This fire victimized not only the property owners but represented a threat to entire communities,” District Attorney Andrea Harrington said.
Hay bales with messages supporting the Joe Biden-Kamala Harris ticket burn Oct. 9, 2001, in Dalton. On Thursday, Lonnie Durfee of Dalton was sentenced to a year in the local House of Correction, less time already served, for setting the display on fire. PHOTO PROVIDED BY MEGAN WHILDEN VIA FACEBOOK
PITTSFIELD â Last month, a year in jail sounded like too much to Lonnie Durfee, the man who set fire last fall to a Dalton farmâs campaign endorsement, a crime covered around the world. On Thursday, he accepted it.
Durfee, 50, pleaded guilty to one count of burning personal property during a Central Berkshire District Court hearing, accepting legal responsibility for pouring gasoline on a farmâs Biden-Harris hay bale display during last fallâs divisive presidential election.
“The use of fire has a deeply rooted association with political and civil rights intimidation. This fire victimized not only the property owners but represented a threat to entire communities,” she said in a statement. “This sentence sends a message that our community will not accept those types of actions and that civility and respect will prevail.”
The display at Holiday Brook Farm in Dalton had featured 19 wrapped hay bales painted with the words “USA” and “VOTE” along with the names of the then-Democratic presidential ticket.
On Oct. 9, 2020, Durfee used motor oil and gasoline to set the display alight because he “disagreed with the political stance it represented,” according to a police report.
PITTSFIELD â Lonnie Durfee appeared poised Wednesday to plead guilty to burning a hulking Biden-Harris hay bale display in what a judge concluded was an act of political intimidation.
But, after learning that the judge would sentence him to a year in jail, he withdrew his plea.
Durfee, 50, was arrested in October, shortly after he admitted to police that he set the blaze on the property of Holiday Brook Farm. He spent about 54 days cumulatively in pretrial lockup, and had requested he be sentenced to time served.
But, during a hearing Wednesday in Central Berkshire District Court, Judge Paul Smyth adopted the prosecutionâs recommendation of a year in the Berkshire County Jail and House of Correction, the maximum sentence for his charge of felony burning personal property.
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