ELLSWORTH – A man who pleaded no contest to burning down his house has a right to sue his insurance company for refusing to pay him for the loss of the structure, according to a Superior Court judge.

Merle Crossman, 49, of Winterport pleaded no contest last May to a charge of arson after authorities determined he intentionally set fire in December 1999 to an Orland home he owned.

He was convicted and sentenced to six years in prison.

Crossman filed a civil suit in December 2001 in Hancock County Superior Court against insurance company Middlesex Mutual of Brunswick for denying his claim on the home. Six months later, after his trial ended in a hung jury, the Winterport man pleaded no contest – which by law is not an admission of guilt – to the arson charge.

The insurance company asked Justice Andrew Mead to throw out Crossman’s suit, arguing that his conviction should bar him from suing over the denied claim.

Mead decided last week, however, that because Crossman’s no-contest plea was not an admission of guilt, the suit brought by Crossman should proceed to trial.

The convicted arsonist, who bought the house shortly before the fire occurred, stood to gain $75,000 in insurance claims as a result of the blaze, Hancock County District Attorney Michael Povich said at the time of Crossman’s trial.

Crossman’s attorney, Laurie Miller of Bangor, said Thursday she was satisfied with Mead’s decision. She said that Mead noted in his decision that the Maine Supreme Court has not ruled previously on the merits of civil suits involving a party whose plea led to a conviction without admitting guilt.

“This was the first case dealing with a no-contest plea,” Miller said. Because Crossman has not admitted guilt, he is not prevented from suing Middlesex Mutual, she said.

Carl Rella and Shaun Lister, Bangor attorneys representing the insurance company, did not return messages left Thursday at their office.

Firefighters who fought the 1999 blaze found a butane torch pointing at several National Geographic magazines that had been stuffed between exposed studs in a basement stairwell of the Castine Road home owned by Crossman. The torch was balanced on top of a box fan that had been placed on the basement stairs.

The home was locked when firefighters arrived, and Crossman was the only person with a key.

Crossman’s criminal trial on the arson charge was supposed to have begun in January 2001, but it was postponed when the defendant failed to show up and was discovered to have left the state. He was arrested that May in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., on a fugitive warrant and was returned to Maine.

Crossman finished sentences for burglary and theft at the Waldo County Jail before he was taken to Hancock County to face the arson charge.

After the mistrial was declared in January of last year, Povich said Crossman had books about disappearing and creating new identities when Pennsylvania authorities found him in an apartment rented under the name of his brother.

Crossman is at Maine State Prison in Warren serving 18 months of the six-year sentence for the arson conviction. Upon his release from prison, he will serve a four-year probation term and could face serving the remainder of his sentence behind bars if he violates his probation terms.