Defendant lit an object and threw it into a ground floor apartment on Elm Street in Yonkers; good Samaritan helped a resident escape
Westchester County District Attorney Miriam E. Rocah announced that a Yonkers man was sentenced on Tuesday to 12 years in state prison for setting a Yonkers apartment on fire with a resident inside in June 2021.
DA Rocah said: “This deliberate act of destruction put residents in harm’s way and displaced a victim from his home. It took a jury just 30 minutes to deliberate and weigh the evidence against this defendant, who now will be held accountable for his senseless actions.”
Following a two-week trial, a jury on Apr. 12 found the defendant, Angel Rivera, 51, guilty of Arson in the Second Degree and Arson in the Third Degree, both felonies. The defendant was also sentenced to five years of post-release supervision.
On June 7, 2021, at approximately 1:56 a.m., the defendant walked up to a residential building on Elm Street in Yonkers, lit an object and threw it into the open window of a ground floor apartment, causing the unit to catch fire. A good Samaritan kicked in the door of the apartment and helped a resident, who was sleeping, escape from the apartment before the Yonkers Fire Department arrived to put out the fire. The incident, which made the apartment uninhabitable, was captured on surveillance video.
The Yonkers Police Department’s Major Case Squad conducted an investigation and identified a suspect from surveillance footage. Police issued a wanted flyer for the defendant, and arrested him on June 9, 2021, after he was observed approximately two blocks from the incident location. Following his arrest, the defendant made admissions to wanting to blow up the residential building.
The District Attorney thanked the Yonkers Police Department for their work on this case.
The case was before Judge Robert Prisco in Westchester County Court and prosecuted by Assistant District Attorney Mathieu Reno of the Trials and Investigations Division.
