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Pasadena Man Gets 9 Years In Arson That Torched Coconut Charlie's

BALTIMORE, Md. (WJZ) -- A Maryland man was sentenced Friday to nine years in federal prison for starting the 2017 fire that destroyed a Pasadena bar and injured a firefighter, authorities said.

U.S. District Judge Richard Bennett sentenced Jamie Clemons to nine years in prison followed by three years of supervised release, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Maryland. As part of his sentence, Clemons was ordered to pay over $560,000 in restitution.

"This defendant not only endangered our brave firefighters who responded to the arson that he set, he caused devastating damage to a longtime Maryland business, forcing it to close," U.S. Attorney Erek L. Barron said in a prepared statement.

Clemons, 36, of Pasadena, pleaded guilty in April to arson charges linked to the July 28, 2017, fire that torched Coconut Charlie's and led to the bar's closure. In his plea agreement, Clemons acknowledged that he threw homemade Molotov cocktails at the bar in hopes of destroying the surveillance system, which had captured him assaulting his girlfriend days earlier.

The fire caused more than $500,000 in damage and a firefighter involved in efforts to extinguish it was injured when a backdraft knocked him from his ladder.

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