A Bangor man remained in jail Friday night on $5,000 cash bail or $20,000 single surety after he had been charged with Class A arson after neighbors reported he was repeatedly lighting his apartment wall on fire.

Christopher R. Warchol, 23, told police that he had been spraying a wall in his apartment with butter spray and then lighting it on fire because “he said that he had this desire to set fires and didn’t know why he did it,” Warchol told Bangor police Detective Brent Beaulieu.

“Chris also told me that he was on medication for his problem but had not had the money to buy the medication. He said the urges to set the fires had returned as he hadn’t been taking his medication,” Beaulieu said.

A neighbor near Warchol’s 23 Fourth St. apartment had noticed Warchol spraying something on a wall, lighting it on fire and creating a large flame, and then using an item resembling a towel to put out the fire, Beaulieu said. The neighbor claimed he saw this process repeated six to eight times at about 1:30 a.m. Thursday.

Initially, Warchol claimed a friend had lit the fires, but then admitted his friend had poked holes in the ceiling with a knife and that he had lit the fires himself.

Given the evidence and the fact that the fires were being lit at a time when several other families were asleep in the building “there was probable cause to arrest Christopher for arson as he was endangering the lives of the other tenants,” Beaulieu said.

Should Warchol make bail, he will be prohibited from returning to the apartment that had been rented for him by the city of Bangor, the detective said. He also will need to take part in an evaluation at Eastern Maine Medical Center pending his release. Warchol, formerly of Georgia and Mississippi, was staying at the homeless shelter in Bangor before he was provided the apartment.

Warchol was convicted of a felony in Jackson, Miss., in 1999, although Bangor officials were unable to immediately determine the nature of the crime.

A Bangor man arrested for threatening patrons at a local bar with a 12-inch knife said he had brandished the weapon because people had been making fun of his Cuban accent.

Bangor police charged Julio Hernandez-Mendoza, 47, with criminal threatening with a dangerous weapon shortly before 1 a.m. Friday, Bangor police Officer Brad Hanson said. Hernandez-Mendoza had been inside Judy’s bar at 125 State St. when, according to him, two other guys he was drinking with made fun of his Cuban accent.

One of the two men claimed Hernandez-Mendoza had gotten mad at a song being played on the jukebox and then brandished the knife leading the man to grab Hernandez-Mendoza’s arms before he fled from the armed man.

The second man claimed that Julio came to the bar and became upset while they were talking, left the establishment, and returned shortly thereafter. The second man claimed that he went over to “make peace” when Hernandez-Mendoza became enraged at him and people began yelling that there was a knife.

A woman who witnessed the events told police she saw two men sit next to Hernandez-Mendoza, and abruptly one of the men grabbed Hernandez-Mendoza’s arms. When Hernandez-Mendoza got away, he then pulled out the knife and attempted to chase the two men.

Witnesses told police they saw Hernandez-Mendoza throw the knife over a fence. Police found the knife with its 7-inch blade behind the building. Police found Hernandez-Mendoza in his apartment upstairs from the bar.

Police checked with the Immigration and Nationalization Service and determined that Hernandez-Mendoza has legal residency in the United States. He was released from jail Friday on personal recognizance bail.

– Compiled by NEWS reporter Derek Breton