Owners Worry Arsonist Will Strike Again

Greg Sherman expressed anger for , the man who destroyed his East Hampton house in May 2010, leading to the injuries of three firefighters and compounding a difficult year for his family.

During a sentencing hearing in Suffolk County Court in Riverhead on Wednesday afternoon, Sherman said, "His senseless, reckless and intentional act has caused a lot pain and hardship."

Last month, about a year after Ward was arrested for also setting fire to a car, he to an indictment that included two counts of third-degree arson on Nov. 14.

While the Suffolk County District Attorney's office requested a 4 to 12-year sentence as part of the plea bargain, County Court Judge William Condon gave Ward 2 to 6 years to run concurrently.

Assistant District Attorney Peter Timmons painted an image of a troubled young man, who "," especially when angry and called Sherman's house his "private sanctuary" and was "kind of mad" after he was arrested for trespassing there in February 2010.

While a psychological exam was done, no psychiatric defense was mounted, Timmons said.

Patchogue-based attorney John Halverson said his client had expressed "his regret and sorrow."

The sentence was at the judge's discretion, with a minimum of 1 to 3 years and maximum was 5 to 15.

Timmons said that while they couldn't get more time for the firefighters' injuries, Ward's plea deal covered three counts of felony assault. firefighter Robert Yurkewitch suffered burns to his leg, firefighter fell nearly two stories onto , the on-duty town fire marshal.

While Sherman hesitated to call himself a victim, he told Condon that the fire financially "paralyzed" him and the co-owners of the house, his fiance Linda Prager and her twin sister Laura Prager, both of whom had lost their jobs right before the May 2, 2010 incident. Then in August, the Pragers' 75-year old father was killed in a car accident. They were treated for depression for a year before being able to go back to work.

The three of them had bought the older, run down house in 2007, renovating it, and renting it out to help pay the mortgage. Their insurance wouldn't pay for the entire house after the fire, for which the cause had been left undetermined for six months before Ward confessed, he said.

Sherman said what made him even more angry was that he had been compassionate towards Ward, a man he never saw before the sentencing, but who had repeatedly broken into his house. When Ward's mother sent him a check for a Pay-Per-View bill he had run up during a burglary, he returned it to her.

"It took away our peace of mind," he said, adding now he has to think ahead to when Ward is released from prison. "We won't sleep so well then," he said.

Condon issued three orders of protection for the homeowners and also an order of restitution for $393,357, "to the extent that ever becomes relevant," he said. "You can never go back there," he told Ward, who said little during the sentencing.

"By virtue of the fact that there wasn't any sort of personal motive -- he wasn't out to get us, he didn't know us -- worries me that he could do it again, to us or to anybody else," Sherman said after court. He told the judge he just hopes no one will be killed if it happens again.