SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (RNS) Three white men accused of setting fire to a black church hours after President Obama’s election pleaded not guilty in federal court on Thursday (Jan. 29), even though investigators claim the men had previously confessed.
Michael F. Jacques, 24; Benjamin F. Haskell, 22; and Thomas A. Gleason Jr., 21; pleaded innocent at a brief arraignment. They are charged with a civil rights violation using arson, which carries a 10-year minimum prison sentence.
The men were indicted by a grand jury on Tuesday, about a week after they were charged in an FBI criminal complaint alleging they doused the Macedonia Church of God in Christ with gasoline and set it afire because they were angry about the election of the nation’s first black president.
The partially constructed, $2.5 million church was destroyed in a massive blaze early Nov. 5, just hours after President Obama’s election.
The timing of the fire, coupled with the racial make-up of the congregation, drew an army of state, local and federal investigators.
A witness told federal agents he drove past the church on Nov. 9 with Haskell, who bragged that he had a hand in burning it, according to court records. The unnamed witness, called “Witness A” in an FBI affidavit, said he asked Haskell why, and Haskell responded: “Because it was a black church.”
Friends and relatives of the defendants have denied the men are racists. Haskell’s father, Michael McDonald, told a reporter his son has black friends and listens to rap music.
“He is a good kid, and he didn’t do it,” McDonald said during an interview. “He was not raised like that.”
An undercover Massachusetts state police trooper and federal agents have said the men admitted burning the church. However, defense lawyer Mark J. Albano, who represents Gleason, questioned the authenticity of the confessions at a previous court hearing.
“I’d like to hear the confessions,” Albano told U.S. District Judge Michael A. Ponsor. “If they’re on tape, then let’s hear them. But we won’t.”
Posing as a criminal looking to torch a vacant building in Holyoke to get the insurance money, the undercover trooper recorded the men agreeing to commit arson for a fee, according to court records. One defendant said he had committed a half-dozen other fires, the trooper said.
Jacques also touted “homemade napalm,” a mixture of Styrofoam and gasoline, which he claimed to have used to burn down a house in his own neighborhood, the trooper said.
The defendants are currently free on $100,000 bail each but remain under house arrest. A pretrial conference is scheduled for March 10.
