Court ups arson damages

Negron ordered to pay more in reimbursement

By KURT NESBITT

Journal Staff Writer

NEW ULM -- A former New Ulm firefighter will have to pay for more of the damages he allegedly caused during a series of fires during 2002, a judge ruled Friday.

Friday's decision expands the amount of money that Gary Ralph Negron, 41, of New Ulm, will have to pay as a condition of a criminal conviction.

Negron was convicted after he entered an Alford plea to arson charges in the second and third degree in Brown County District Court in September. Watonwan County District Judge Alison Krehbiel Baskfield had sentenced Negron to spend 6 months in jail, ordered him to pay New Ulm Telecom, his former employer, $15,000 to cover part of the damages and allowed 90 days for anyone seeking damages to make a claim. Negron was released from jail early last month.

Brown County court documents show that both New Ulm Telecom and the Tri-State Insurance Company originally asked the court to order Negron to pay damages totaling $320,601.

But on Friday, Baskfield decided that Negron only has to repay $48,000 of the requested amount.

The judge ruled Negron won't have to pay the remaining $272,601 as long as he makes payments of $400 a month for 10 years.

But if Negron misses the payments, he will have to pay the claims in full, Baskfield said.

The judge also ruled that any lottery winnings or inheritance Negron may have in the future will also be used to pay the damages.

Negron is the first New Ulm firefighter convicted of arson. He was a member of the city's volunteer fire department from March 2001 to September 2002, when he was formally charged with setting fires on New Ulm Telecom property.

He first became a suspect after investigators learned that Negron, who was supposedly at the scenes of four fires, didn't say anything about what he might have seen there.

A criminal complaint alleged Negron admitted setting two of the fires with lit cigarettes and investigators felt he was responsible for two more fires during the summer of 2002, one of which did an estimated $500,000 worth of damage to a New Ulm Telecom warehouse and another that caused $10,000 damage to some wooden cable spools.

Negron did not technically admit any guilt when he made his Alford plea in September. Instead, he admitted that the state's evidence against him could cause a jury to return a conviction against him. Brown County agreed to drop a first-degree arson charge as a part of the plea agreement.