A former worker at the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (MSPCA) pled guilty today in a Boston courthouse of Arson against the group’s Jamaica Plain MSPCA-Angell Memorial Hospital late in the evening on February 19, 2010, causing severe damage to the building and forcing the evacuation of dozens of employees and hundreds of animals in their care, and injuring one firefighter authorities said. It is said he set the fire in order to take credit for putting the fire out.
MSPCA spokesman Brian Adams said in a phone interview that he “could not fathom” why Fitzgerald would want to set himself up as a hero in such a dangerous manner. “He placed himself in the eye of the storm that he created,” Adams said. “To what end or what purpose that served his personality or ego, I couldn’t comment.”
None of the animals or hospital staffers were injured, though a firefighter was, authorities said. Fitzgerald pled guilty to arson and causing injury to a firefighter. He was sentenced to four years of probation and ordered to serve 100 hours of community service and undergo mental health treatment. Fitzgerald was also ordered to reimburse the MSPCA for the $8,177 in jobless benefits the group paid him before those benefits were denied, as well as $24,000 in fire-related damages, among other conditions of his probation.
