Arson suspect contends innocence
SANDPOINT — A Bonner County man accused of setting a series of fires that damaged a Hope home contends he is innocent.
“I was not the one who started the fire,” Lawrence Wayne Cross Jr. said during an initial court appearance in magistrate court on Tuesday.
Cross also asked for a reduced bail and stated that he was getting married in two days, court records indicate.
Judge Debra Heise, however, sustained his $100,000 bail and appointed a public defender to represent him. A preliminary hearing to determine if the state has a strong enough case to justify trying Cross for first-degree arson is pending.
Cross, 38, is accused of setting three fires inside a home at 312 Grandview Ave. on June 26.
Nobody was at the home when the fire was detected and firefighters had to force their way through locked doors in order put out the fires, according to court documents.
Bonner County Sheriff’s Det. Christian Frye testified at a June 28 probable cause hearing that fires were set in the home’s basement, master bedroom and a living room.
Frye told Judge Lori Meulenberg that there was an overwhelming odor of gasoline in the basement and burn patterns suggested the fuel was used as an accelerant.
Accelerants did not appear to have been used in the two upstairs fires, probable cause hearing testimony indicates.
Investigators recovered three empty gas cans from the home’s garage, court records state.
The fire occurred three days after the home’s renters, Pam and Wayne Gamboa allegedly got involved in a domestic dispute. Wayne Gamboa is accused of firing a gunshot in the direction of his wife during the altercation, which resulted in his arrest for aggravated assault and unlawful possession of a firearm due to felony convictions for forgery and burglary in California and Nevada.
Wayne Gamboa, 50, was being held at the Bonner County Jail when the fire broke out. Cross is described in court documents as a friend of the Gamboas.
Cross emerged as an arson suspect after a witness saw him leaving the residence about 10 minutes before the fires were detected, according to court documents.
Authorities preliminarily suspect a renter’s insurance scam may have been the motive for the arson, probable cause hearing testimony indicates.
Cross was arrested on a $100,000 warrant in Hope on Monday. He is already awaiting trial for allegedly stealing a Ponderay man’s all-terrain vehicle last August.
It was not clear on Tuesday if there would be any additional arrests in connection with the fire.
“We’re still investigating,” said Chief Deputy Prosecutor Shane Greenbank.
It’s the first arson prosecution in Bonner County since 2009, when a developmentally disabled man set fire to a paper towel dispenser at the Quality Inn in Sandpoint. David Holden Irby was ultimately sentenced to up to four years in prison.