Man who threw Molotov cocktail at house where he thought prostitutes plotted is sentenced
A man who threw a lit rag wick sticking from a beer bottle filled with gasoline at a house in Fort Worth, setting it on fire, was sentenced this week to 10 years in prison.
Mearvin Hamilton, 53, was sitting on the porch of the house next door where he lived when authorities arrived on July 12, 2019, to tame the blaze and investigate. Containers of gasoline and lighter fluid were under his chair, according to an ATF senior special agent’s account in a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court.
Hamilton said in an interview with law enforcement authorities that he had made Molotov cocktails from bottles that held beer he drank on another day.
He said he believed prostitutes lived next door and that they were plotting to kill him, according to the complaint. He said he “started throwing bottles of gas at the house” in order to “set it on fire.”
The fire damaged the outside of the house on Avenue G. The hundred block is redacted in the complaint.
Two adults and two children who were inside the house were not injured.
Hamilton was indicted on a possession of an unregistered destructive device charge in January. He pleaded guilty in February.
U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor sentenced Hamilton on Monday to the maximum prison term for the crime and to a three-year period of supervised release.
This story was originally published July 9, 2020 at 6:30 PM.
