MOORHEAD-A Sabin man has been ordered to pay back more than $110,000 in restitution and serve up to 10 years of supervised probation after pleading guilty to arson.
According to the terms of a plea deal at his sentencing hearing Thursday morning in Clay County District Court, Jon Leo Lague, 51, will pay back $110,251.25 following his guilty plea to a second-degree felony arson.
Lague was charged with deliberately setting a fire in his home for the insurance money after a frozen pipe burst last winter, flooding the house.
After hearing the fire was ruled an arson, Lague told a Clay County detective he'd set the fire on purpose in order to get the insurance money, according to court records. He had been feeling overwhelmed with the flooded house and some other debt he carried, he told the investigator.
So he'd taken a canvas tarp left by a flood cleanup company that was supposed to suck water out of the basement and, placing it against his bathroom wall, lit it with a lighter, officials alleged in the complaint.
