PROVIDENCE – A man has been federally indicted on a charge of arson for allegedly breaking into a Woonsocket manufacturing plant and setting fires in multiple locations.
According to a news release Tuesday from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Rhode Island, Jacob E. Lahousse, 26, of no known address, was indicted after being arrested Dec. 26 and was ordered detained in federal custody by U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge Patricia A. Sullivan.
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On April 5, Woonsocket police responded to an alarm at Sports Systems Custom Bag Corp., located at 44 Hazel St., just north of downtown, and discovered smoke in the building and water flowing from sprinkler heads in both the building’s basement and first floor, the release states.
A “small fire” inside a desktop computer that was lying on the basement floor and “smoldering papers” on a desk inside a first-floor office were extinguished, the release states. Most of the fire was extinguished by the sprinklers before emergency personnel arrived.
Along with finding evidence of forced entry, including an attempted entry into a safe, investigators also found a “badly damaged” DVR used to record security images, according to the release. Court documents state the surveillance shows a person – later identified as allegedly being Lahousse – using a ladder to access the building and “collecting various items and placing them into bags, which he obtained within the facility.” Lahousse also allegedly disabled and destroyed “several surveillance cameras,” the release states.
The R.I. Office of the State Fire Marshal and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives helped in the investigation, the release states. Assistant U.S. Attorney Dulce Donovan will prosecute the case.
James Bessette is the PBN special projects editor and also covers the nonprofit and education sectors. You may reach him at Bessette@PBN.com.
