Man pleads guilty to breaking in, setting fires inside Woonsocket business

PROVIDENCE – A man who was federally indicted in December 2019 on a charge of arson for allegedly breaking into a Woonsocket manufacturing plant and setting fires in multiple locations inside the building in April 2019 pleaded guilty Monday, U.S. Attorney for the District of Rhode Island Zachary A. Cunha announced. 

Jacob E. Lahousse, 23, of no known address, admitted that he set the fires after climbing a ladder and entering the rear of the building, which houses at least two businesses.  

On April 5, 2019, Woonsocket police responded to an alarm at Sports Systems Custom Bag Corp., located at 44 Hazel St., and discovered smoke in the building and water flowing from sprinkler heads in both the building’s basement and first floor, PBN previously reported. 

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, according to a Monday news release announcing Lahousse’s guilty plea. Most of the fire was extinguished by the sprinklers before emergency personnel arrived. 

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Along with finding evidence of forced entry, including an attempted entry into a safe, investigators found a “badly damaged” digital video recorder used to record security images, according to a December 2019 news release.

According to charging documents and information presented to the court, video surveillance shows Lahousse walking around the inside of the building collecting various items and placing them into bags, destroying several video surveillance cameras and then setting three separate fires in the building: one inside a desktop computer on the basement level, one to a piece of fabric on the basement level and one on a loveseat in a first-floor office.

In the office that sustained fire damage, a handwritten note was posted on the wall that stated, “[i]n case you decided 2 call the feds I got pics of the fam,” and on the desk next to the note was an empty picture frame that previously contained a family photo, according to the Monday news release.

Lahousse was identified as the individual depicted in the video surveillance by numerous individuals, according to the Monday news release. He was arrested on July 14, 2019, by Blackstone, Mass., police and found to be in possession of two checkbooks in the name of the owner of one of the businesses inside the building where he set the fires. 

Lahousse was indicted in December 2019 and ordered detained in federal custody by U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge Patricia A. Sullivan.

Lahousse is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 12.