By Associated Press
Birmingham, AL – Three former college students were sentenced to prison Monday for a series of rural church fires that began as a prank during a night of drinking.
Benjamin Nathan Moseley and Russell Lee DeBusk, both 20, and 21-year-old Matthew Cloyd pleaded guilty in December to federal arson and conspiracy charges linked to the blazes set over two nights in February 2006.
Cloyd and Mosely were both sentenced yesterday to eight years in prison, five years of probation and 300 hours of community service at the burned churches.
They were also ordered to pay three-point-one million dollars in restitution to the churches that were burned.
U-S- District Judge David Proctor sentenced DeBusk to seven years in prison and five years probation and ordered him to pay one-point-nine (m) million dollars in restitution. He received a lighter sentence because he was not involved in as many of the fires.
Five churches were set ablaze in Bibb County about 45 miles south of Birmingham on one night. Four other churches were burned four days later in three western counties near the Mississippi line.
(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)