Man who tried to set 2 Hulen Mall stores on fire with Molotov cocktail sentenced
A man who tried setting two Fort Worth department stores on fire over the summer was sentenced to a decade in prison on Monday.
In July, Craig Michael Tezeno, 46, of Fort Worth, pleaded guilty to igniting several Molotov cocktails inside two department stores in Fort Worth’s Hulen Mall.
Tezeno went into the Dillard’s store inside the Hulen Mall on May 11 with a glass bottle filled with gasoline and topped with a rag. While in the store, court documents say Tezeno lit the rag and placed the bottle on the floor. Soon after, he did the same thing with a second Molotov cocktail at the Sears in the mall.
Tezeno hoped both devices would set the stores on fire, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Erin Nealy Cox said.
A week later, Tezeno returned to the Sears, lit a third Molotov cocktail and again placed it on the floor, Cox said.
No one was injured in the attempted attacks, and employees were able to extinguish the devices.
Tezeno was arrested May 18 at Hulen Mall after maintenance workers pointed him out to officers and told police he looked like the person who set fires in the mall May 11.
Tezeno was sitting on a bench near the Dillard’s store and was found to have a loaded pistol when officers searched him.
He was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
This story was originally published November 19, 2018 at 6:12 PM.
