By: News Director Larissa Donovan
BEMIDJI– A Bemidji man was sentenced today to almost five years in a state prison for arson.
According to court documents, 38-year-old Brian Andy Simon pleaded guilty to first degree arson earlier this month.
The criminal complaint states that Simon set a mobile home on fire in August 2018 near the old Newby’s store, where video surveillance captured a person resembling Simon leaving the area at approximately the same time the fire was set.
Brian Andy Simon, 38, Bemidji. Photo courtesy of the Beltrami County Jail.
Simon’s phone was confiscated as a part of that investigation and was subsequently charged with six counts of possessing child pornography.
Simon has already spent over a year in custody, and no conviction has yet been passed on the child pornography charges, to which he has pleaded not guilty.
