Man pleads no contest to Orland arson Accused forgoes retrial for December 1999 fire; files suit for home’s insurance

ELLSWORTH – A Winterport man accused of burning down a house he owned in Orland for the insurance money pleaded no contest Tuesday in Hancock County Superior Court to a charge of arson.

Merle Crossman, 48, agreed to a six-year sentence with all but 18 months of it suspended and four years probation the day before jury selection in his retrial on the arson charge was scheduled to begin, according to the attorneys involved.

Crossman was tried on the charge in January, but Justice Andrew Mead declared a mistrial when the jury could not agree on a verdict.

Crossman’s attorney, Julio DeSanctis of Orrington, said Tuesday that his client faced as many as 20 years in prison if he went to trial again and was convicted. The maximum sentence for arson is 40 years, DeSanctis said, but there were no aggravating factors in Crossman’s case that would have warranted a sentence of more than 20 years.

“It probably would have been another hung jury,” DeSanctis said Tuesday. “The underlying sentence of six years is reasonable.”

Crossman was accused of setting fire to a house he owned on Castine Road in Orland on Dec. 18, 1999. He set a lit propane torch on top of a fan on the cellar steps of the house to ignite several copies of National Geographic magazine that he had stuffed between the exposed studs in the stairwell wall, according to investigators with the State Fire Marshal’s Office. Crossman reportedly locked the doors of the house and left, they said, but the flames were discovered by two men driving past the house at 11 that night.

Also included in the plea agreement were two 90-day sentences, each concurrent with the arson sentence, for failure to appear in court.

Crossman was wanted in Waldo County on a burglary charge and in Hancock County for the arson charge when he allegedly fled the state in 2000. He was arrested on a fugitive warrant last May after he was located in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., living in an apartment rented under the name of his brother, investigators said.

According to Hancock County District Attorney Michael Povich, books about disappearing and creating new identities were in Crossman’s possession when he was found.

Povich also said Tuesday that he and fire marshal investigators think the plea is satisfactory.

“It’s a reasonable resolution,” he said. “Considering it was going to be a retrial, I think the negotiated plea was in the best interests of everybody.”

Crossman stood to gain $75,000 in insurance claims for the badly damaged house, which he bought for $25,000 a month before it burned, according to Povich. Part of Tuesday’s deal requires that Crossman pay $2,600 in restitution to the insurance company and $1,400 to the Orland Fire Department, Povich said.

DeSanctis said Crossman is suing Middlesex Mutual, the company that had insured the house, for its refusal to honor Crossman’s insurance claim.

The house has since been demolished.