Overview
- Federal prosecutors unsealed a criminal complaint this week charging 24-year-old John Jones with intentionally setting the South Bushwick Reformed Church on June 19 and placed him in federal proceedings.
- Authorities say surveillance video shows a man trying to enter the church, then buying a lighter at a nearby store before returning to the building and that a witness photo captured smoke and flames soon after.
- Prosecutors allege Jones confessed after his arrest and say officers recovered a notebook with violent lists and that he told investigators he had tried to burn a second church.
- Officials are seeking pretrial detention, citing the alleged confession, the notebook’s threats, a late-June property-damage arrest, missed court dates, and the suspect’s unstable housing as flight and public-safety risks.
- The June 19 three-alarm blaze gutted the 1853 wooden landmark, collapsed its steeple, destroyed artifacts, and has prompted stabilization work, fundraising by congregation and preservation groups, and upcoming federal court hearings that will determine the case’s next steps.