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Framingham homeless man accused of setting fire to apartment

E-mail|Link|Comments () November 6, 2009 04:24 PM

By Jack Nicas, Globe Correspondent

A homeless man allegedly set fire to a Framingham apartment he had been squatting in, two weeks after he was told to leave, authorities said.

“We’re just shocked,” said Stefan Hsi, son of the three-story building’s owners. “We actually didn’t know he was living there until we drove down from Maine about a week ago.”

William Francis Christian, 35, allegedly broke into the two-family home on Gordon Street early Thursday morning and started a fire in the ground-floor unit he was illegally occupying weeks earlier, according to town fire officials and Hsi.

“They’re looking at ignition of common combustible materials” as the fire’s cause, said Framingham Fire Chief Gary Daugherty. “Basically, he set fire to whatever was there.”

Residents of the building’s top floor, Ruben Quinones and Christian Adeic, whom Hsi said are also squatting illegally, told police Christian had broken into the top-floor apartment asking for a cigarette. Several minutes later, the building’s smoke alarms sounded, police said.

Officials responded to a fire at about 3:45 a.m., knocking it down in 21 minutes with the help of 30 firefighters, Daugherty said. After an estimated $100,000 in damages, the house was deemed uninhabitable, he said.

Using the description provided by Quinones and Adeic, police arrested Christian at about 8:30 a.m. He was charged with arson, breaking and entering in the nighttime, and malicious destruction of property worth more than $250.

Christian pleaded not guilty Thursday at his arraignment at Framingham District Court and was held without bail until a pretrial conference Monday, a court official said.

Hsi said he first met Christian on Oct. 22, when he found him living in the building without permission.

“We told him, ‘Why are you living here? You haven’t paid any rent to us,’” said Hsi, who lives in China, but has been taking care of his sick father in Portland, Maine. “He said he lost his girlfriend and his job and that he’d move out on Oct. 27. … We trusted him.”

When Hsi went to check on the home after Oct. 27, he found it largely destroyed, he said.

“Lo and behold, the entire building was trashed. The drywall, the insulation, all ripped apart. Broken glass, beer bottles everywhere,” he said. “I believe he used some type of axe to cause a lot of the damage.”

Hsi said he also told Quinones and Adeic to leave on Oct. 22 when they produced falsified leases, but they were not present on Oct. 27.

Hsi said he did not contact the police regarding the squatters or the damage to the home.

He said he just wanted to get the property fixed and keep Christian away.

“Basically, we don’t want him to come near the property again," he said.