Accused arsonist takes plea offer granting suspended sentence
Oct. 21—A 23-year-old rural Carthage man pleaded guilty this week to a burglary count in an arson case and was granted a suspended imposition of sentence with restitution made a condition of his probation.
Mason A. Sneed pleaded guilty Monday in Jasper County Circuit Court to second-degree burglary in a plea agreement dismissing a related count of second-degree arson and permitting the suspended imposition of sentence.
Judge David Mouton accepted the plea deal and placed Sneed on five years of supervised probation with an order to pay $1,075 in restitution to the owner of the vacant house on County Road 185 in which he and two suspected accomplices set several small fires July 24, 2018.
The house owned by Joseph Ray Lee was under renovation when Sneed, 22-year-old Leevon E. Harrison and a third uncharged suspect entered the residence through an unlocked door looking for a fuel can they could use because their car had run out of gas. A probable-cause affidavit alleged that they used matches they found in the house to set a mattress and the arms of a couch and chair on fire.
The fires destroyed the house and all its contents, according to the affidavit.
Harrison pleaded guilty to a burglary count two years ago and was assessed a suspended sentence with an order to pay $26,075 in restitution with anyone else convicted of the crime, according to court records.
