Man to serve 232 days for arson of Blaine home
Michael Joseph Bourgeois (Anoka County Jail)
A Blaine man learned his future on Wednesday after being convicted of first-degree arson.
Michael Joseph Bourgeois, 24 was sentenced to a year in Anoka County Jail. He has credit for 133 days already served and has the option to serve the remainder of the time at a treatment facility or on work release.
He also received a stayed sentence of over five years(69 months) in prison, which he will serve if he violates the terms of his parole.
Bourgeois was initially charged with two counts of first-degree arson in April of 2022. He plead guilty in August of 2022 to one count of first-degree arson in exchange for the dismissal of the first arson count and the potential for residential treatment.
Court documents indicate that Bourgeois had been previously treated in 2018 and 2019 for schizophrenia and borderline personality disorder.
RELATED: Sentencing for man charged with arson of Blaine home moved to February
As previously reported, a complaint says neighbors saw a man walk into the backyard of a neighboring home on Lincoln Street Northeast on Apr. 27, 2022, and throw something through a window, after which a fire broke out.
One of the neighbors ran after the man while the other neighbor called 911 and tried to get a garden hose to extinguish the fire, the complaint adds.
When officers arrived, they found Bourgeois walking on 108th Avenue Northeast and arrested him. The neighbors then identified him as the man who’d started the fire and also apparently placed a jug of some liquid on the windowsill and started it on fire.
Police said a large lighter was found in the backyard of the affected home.
A 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS crew was at the scene of a fire which then broke out at the same home during the early morning hours of Thursday, Apr. 28, 2022. Firefighters were called to the home just before 3 a.m. that day. No one was home at the time of the Thursday fire.
Court documents haven’t stated why Bourgeois set the fire.
A 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS photographer captured this image at the scene of the fire in 2022.