Orland man pleads guilty to arson before trial

ELLSWORTH – Given the circumstances, a two-year prison term for arson is appropriate for an Orland man who abruptly changed his plea on the charge from innocent to guilty, the prosecutor in his case said Tuesday.

Michael Povich, district attorney for Hancock County, said Daniel Cook’s guilty plea Monday will keep him in prison for a total of 14 years.

“It’s appropriate based on the fact he’s already doing 12 years,” Povich said. Cook, 49, was sentenced to 12 years in prison in May 2000 after he pleaded guilty to seven counts of gross sexual assault for routinely raping his wife’s teen-age daughter, Povich said.

The arson charge arose from an incident in which Cook purposely set fire on Oct. 15, 1999, to his car and the trailer home he and his estranged wife co-owned on Oak Hill Road in Orland.

According to Sgt. Stu Jacobs of the State Fire Marshal’s Office, Cook tried to assault his wife, who had a temporary restraining order against him, at a neighboring mobile home shortly before setting fire to the one they co-owned. Cook’s wife, Donna Cook, was living in the neighboring trailer less than 100 feet away at the time of the incident, he said.

“He barged in next door to get at her, couldn’t get at her and left,” Jacobs said Tuesday.

Soon after, when Cook already had set fire to his trailer, another person in the neighboring trailer saw him setting fire to his car, Jacobs said. Both the car and trailer were destroyed after Cook splashed them with gasoline and lit them with a match, he said. Cook also ransacked the trailer before setting it on fire, he said.

According to Cook’s attorney, Stephen Smith of Bangor, his client has not given him a reason for why he abruptly changed his plea Monday, just as his trial on the arson charge was about to get under way in Hancock County Superior Court.

“He leaned over in the middle of jury selection and said he wanted to change his plea,” Smith said Tuesday. “I’m not sure I could tell you why. It was his decision.”

Smith said he would have asked for less time for the arson conviction had he thought they could have gotten it. He said that because the complex underlying sentence from Cook’s gross sexual assault conviction could affect his arson conviction, the court has to make sure that serving a two-year consecutive sentence and then a probation term of six years for the arson is permitted by state statute before the sentence is formally imposed.

Smith said Tuesday the court still was in the process of reviewing the state statutes.

In exchange for the guilty plea, a second arson charge and a charge of aggravated criminal mischief were dismissed. All charges were related to the same Oct. 15, 1999, incident in which Cook set his trailer on fire, Smith said.

Trooper Alden Bustard of the Maine State Police, who headed to the scene having only received a report of domestic violence, heard about the fire as he was driving to Oak Hill Road. When he arrived, he found Cook sitting on the ground at the end of his driveway.

According to Jacobs, Cook made no effort to stop firefighters from putting out the blaze after they arrived at the scene.

“He ignored them,” Jacobs said. Cook was arrested for violating his wife’s protection order and was charged with arson later that evening, Jacobs said. At the time of his arrest, Cook was wanted for gross sexual assault and failure to appear in court.

One of the benefits of Cook changing his plea to guilty is that prosecutors don’t have to make an effort to find one of the chief witnesses, he said.

“His estranged wife has left the state and is nowhere to be found,” Jacobs said.

Povich said he has an idea of where Donna Cook could be found, but that other witnesses to the arson could have made a fairly compelling case to find Daniel Cook guilty had the case actually been tried in court.

Jacobs said the sentence is appropriate in Cook’s case. He said Cook set the fires maliciously with complete disregard for what could have happened.

“Very often, at the time the fire occurs the person is not giving any thought to the safety or well-being of people nearby,” Jacobs said. “It’s a deadly motivation.”