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3790 3rd St S Home Depot Parking Lot
The man authorities already declared as a one-person abomination beachcomber shall absorb the abutting 35 years in bastille for actuality bedevilled of afire a St. Tammany Archdiocese academy bus in the bounce of 2009, a accompaniment adjudicator absitively Friday.
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Andrew David Wetzel, 22, who has 15 abomination convictions, faced a best abuse of activity abaft confined beneath Louisiana's career bent statute. But he accustomed a almost beneath astringent book from Adjudicator Richard A. "Rick" Swartz during a abrupt audition in the archdiocese courthouse in Covington.
Swartz explained his accommodation to the actor by adage he was "in charge of correctional treatment" and that acceptance him the achievability of acquittal would affectation an "undue risk" to the public.
The abomination the abandoned Wetzel was punished for happened on April 20, 2009, in Slidell.
That day he slipped into a firefighter T-shirt with the chat "Rescue" emblazoned beyond the back. He spotted a academy bus anchored at Alex's Body Shop abreast the Home Depot and crept into it to sleep.
But while clearing in, he came beyond the bus keys, according to a acknowledgment he fabricated to police.
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Hours earlier, Wetzel had scoped out several computers in advocate Glyn Godwin's Olde Towne law office, so he absitively to accroach the bus to go abduct them, according to the confession.
He bankrupt into the office, blanket computers and lit the abode on bonfire to awning his tracks. He again collection off and anchored the bus in the Home Depot parking lot. He saw Slidell badge admiral stationed nearby, panicked, sprayed a rag with WD40 and austere the bus up -- with baseborn computers inside, according to the confession.
Wetzel, who additionally has 26 allege awaiting adjoin him, was arrested anon after. Meanwhile, Home Depot's video surveillance captured footage of a man analogous Wetzel's description.
His court-appointed aegis attorney, John Lindner, accepted to jurors during a two-day balloon in September that Wetzel is a thief. However, he cautioned, "that doesn't beggarly he set this fire."
Wetzel told jurors his recorded confession, which was played for jurors during the trial, was false. He alone gave it, he said, because Slidell badge threatened to arrest his wife. Slidell badge denied the allegation, and Assistant Commune Advocate Jason Cuccia alleged Wetzel's absolute affidavit "a complete fabrication."
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Cuccia apprenticed the board to aught in on the acknowledgment he had accustomed in the hours afterwards the crime, back Wetzel accurate the bus cardinal - No. 299. That, Cuccia said, was article Wetzel would apperceive alone if he affronted the blaze.
A 12-member board took three hours to captive Wetzel. The commune attorney's Appointment is not accepted to accompany the added allege because of the book Swartz imposed Friday.
Wetzel, the son of a abettor in the St. Tammany Archdiocese Sheriff's Office, has pleaded accusable to a half-dozen altered theft-related allege over the years. That does not accommodate agnate pleas to six counts of arising abandoned checks and three counts of coffer fraud.
He served as a advance firefighter with St. Tammany Parish's 3rd Bonfire Protection Commune in Lacombe for about bisected a ages in 2007, Arch Chuck Flynn has said. During his abrupt stint, he collection foolishly to scenes, acclimated his emergency lights to break cull bodies over and got accused of stalking the babe of a bonfire arch in Mississippi, according to Flynn.
Right afterwards the bus blaze, as emergency crews scrambled, Wetzel allegedly airish as a firefighter to accretion admission to the National Guard's Camp Villere. There, he approved to abduct accessories from the training centermost of the 1st Bonfire Protection District.
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The balloon jury, however, never heard capacity about those charges. Meanwhile, badge already capital Wetzel as a doubtable in several burglaries, bad check-cases and added crimes.
Inside the attorneys Friday, Wetzel appeared assured and calm.
A agent who anticipation Wetzel was chatting with a adolescent bedfellow as the cloister handled added business ordered him to aqueduct down. Wetzel -- who wore a denim jacket, dejected inmate's clothes, and had his arch baldheaded -- audibly retorted, "That wasn't alike me. If you're activity to allege me of something, allege me of article I absolutely did. I'm aloof saying."
Inmates chuckled as they watched the exchange. Wetzel gazed about and smiled.
Later, he yawned as the adjudicator spoke.
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Ramon Antonio Vargas can be accomplished at rvargas@timespicayune.com or 985.898.4827.
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