A University student has been arrested and charged with arson in connection with a fire outside Holder Hall last week, University and county officials said Monday.
Robert Scott Huettig '07 was charged Friday with one count of second-degree aggravated arson, said Casey DeBlasio, a spokeswoman for the Mercer County prosecutor's office. DeBlasio said she had no information about a motive for the alleged crime since the investigation is ongoing.
Huettig, aged 21 and originally a member of the Class of 2006, was released Saturday on $50,000 bail. He has also been barred from campus and "suspended without prejudice," University spokesperson Cass Cliatt '96. "The University has not made a judgment as to his guilt or innocence because all of the facts of the case are not known," she said.
If convicted, Huettig, a native of Chestnut Hill, Ma., faces five to ten years in prison and a fine of up to $150,000, Public Safety deputy director Charles Davall said.
Public Safety first received a call about smoke outside Holder at 5:42 a.m. Friday, where pieces of wood and construction material were found on fire, according to the department's media log. Though the fire was quickly extinguished, some contractor equipment was damaged, Davall said. The cost of the damage has not yet been assessed.
The fire at Holder comes less than two weeks after an earlier incident in the basement of Lourie-Love Hall, which Davall described at the time as "definitely" an act of arson. But Davall and other University officials cautioned Monday that there is no evidence currently linking Huettig to the earlier incident.
Township police, however, are continuing to investigate the Holder and Lourie-Love fires, along with several other smaller fires on campus this year, DeBlasio said, though she too noted that Huettig has only been charged in connection with the Holder fire.
It remains unclear whether the other campus fires, some of which occurred in trash cans, were acts of arson. University officials said that those fires could easily have been set by accident — if an individual had thrown a cigarette into the garbage, for example.
After the Lourie-Love fire, which occurred Dec. 5, Public Safety officials formed a taskforce with Township police and the Mercer County arson unit to investigate the incident, Davall said. That same taskforce was involved with the investigation into the Holder fire.
Huettig was taken into custody later Friday morning, after investigators found evidence linking him to the Holder fire, Davall said, noting in particular Public Safety investigators Charlie Peters' and Alvin Flanders' "great detective work on this."
Davall declined to elaborate on what information officials learned that linked Huettig to the Holder fire, citing the ongoing investigation. He also declined to comment on what law enforcement officials may have found in Huettig's room in Bloomberg Hall after executing a search warrant there on Friday.
Township police detectives, who interrogated Huettig after his arrest, could not be reached for comment Monday.
— Includes reporting by Princetonian Staff Writer Mike Shapiro.
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