Questions remain in fire

SANDPOINT — A Bonner County man indicted on molestation charges by a California grand jury remains a person of interest in a suspicious fire that destroyed his home in Vay.

David Charles Jacquot escaped the March blaze and was hospitalized. He was subsequently arrested for violating the terms of his conditional release in a tax fraud case pending in San Diego.

The fire led to the discovery of an array of weaponry, none of which he was allowed to possess while the federal tax case was pending. Agents from the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco & Firearms allegedly discovered a Glock 9-millimeter pistol with an obliterated serial number, a 40-mm grenade launcher and more than 40 other weapons.

Five months after the fire, a federal grand jury in San Diego handed up an indictment alleging that Jacquot transported an underage girl across state lines on several occasions in 2006 for the purposes of engaging in criminal sexual activity.

Jacquot, a 47-year-old attorney and Gulf War veteran, pleaded not guilty to the sex charges, according to court documents.

“Obviously, we intend to vigorously defend these unfounded charges also,” Jacquot’s San Diego defense attorney, Michael L. Crowley, said in an e-mail to The Daily Bee.

Bonner County Prosecutor Louis Marshall said his office has been working with the sheriff’s office, in addition to authorities in San Diego and Spokane, Wash., on the investigation into Jacquot.

“We are pleased our assistance directly led to David Jacquot’s indictment earlier this month,” Marshall said in an e-mail, adding that Jacquot remains a person of interest in the fire. “The circumstances surrounding the fire are suspicious in nature and we will continue to try and develop leads and evidence in an attempt to piece together this very bizarre puzzle we have been presented with.”