TACOMA – A June 5 trial date has been set for a man charged with the 2004 arson fire of condominiums at the Resort at Port Ludlow.
Kevin Graesser, 29, formerly of Port Townsend and Port Hadlock, will be tried before a 12-person federal jury in U.S. District Court in Tacoma.
Graesser pleaded not guilty to the arson charge April 20 in Tacoma.
The Port Ludlow fire occurred on Dec. 2, 2004, and destroyed four Admiralty I condo units and severely damaged four others.
Graesser faces a sentence of between five and 20 years in prison with a fine of up to $250,000, with two years supervised release following a possible prison term.
Graesser, also known as Keith Preston, is being held in a federal detention center in SeaTac, said Gregory Gruber, the U.S. attorney prosecuting the case.
No person was harmed in the fire, but a cat perished.
Graesser is accused of starting the fire early that December morning inside a resident’s Mercury Sable parked in the carport below the condos.
His motive, said police, was that he suspected the Mercury owner’s grandson, who was staying with her at her Admiralty I condo, of being sexually involved with Graesser’s then-girlfriend, court records show.
Graesser also is being investigated in connection with a Dec. 30, 2002 arson fire at the Hadlock Apartments, 50 Old Hadlock Road in Port Hadlock, said Gruber.
Court documents attribute the motive for fire to getting even with a married couple Graesser thought owed him money.
He has not been charged in connection with that fire, although Gruber said he may refer to the Port Hadlock fire during trial.
“Even if we don’t charge it, it’s possible we may bring in evidence from that fire,” Gruber said Thursday.
He said the strategy is called “prior bad acts” and would be used to establish a pattern of criminal activity.
The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, in conjunction with U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, had investigated the Port Ludlow fire since it occurred.
The investigation had a breakthrough in July 2006 when Graesser’s wife, Nicole Cotton, came forward and told investigators all she knew about the Port Ludlow and Port Hadlock fires.
Graesser and Cotton, who had been dating on and off two years prior to the Port Ludlow fire, were married a week after the fire, “probably so I couldn’t testify,” Cotton told investigators, according to court records.
“Cotton was asked if she was aware of any other arsons committed by Graesser. Cotton immediately replied, ‘Hadlock Apartments,'” according to a U.S. District Court document written by Special Agent Kirk J. Dennis of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Gruber said he hopes to call Cotton to the stand, but expects the defense to argue that she is not able to testify, because state and federal courts have determined that spouses are unable to testify against their husbands and wives.
“I think she will be allowed to testify, but I think we have a case even without her testimony,” said Gruber.
Although, he added, “She’s a very important government witness.”
Graesser’s federal public defender, Russell Leonard, refused to comment.
A key piece of physical evidence is a gray hooded sweatshirt found 738 feet from the scene of the Port Ludlow fire, said Gruber.
Those who knew Graesser, and Graesser himself, had told investigators that he almost always wore a hooded sweatshirt.
When investigators went to his house days after the blaze to ask about the sweatshirt, Graesser said he had two dark hooded sweatshirts, but could produce only one, court records show.
DNA was extracted from the sweatshirt found at the fire.
Investigators obtained a search warrant in September 2006 to take DNA samples from Graesser, who at that the time was in the King County Jail serving a sentence for assault.
But when they went to get the sample, investigators learned that a judge had released Graesser to a drug treatment center, and that he had violated the terms of his probation by fleeing to Alaska.
Graesser was picked up March 7 by Alaska state troopers on an unrelated offense.
The troopers learned that a federal warrant was out for Graesser’s arrest.
Graesser was transported to Washington from Alaska by the U.S. Marshal’s Service in late March.
He was indicted April 12.
DNA samples have not yet been taken from Graesser, said Gruber, but a swab of his saliva will likely be taken before the trial begins in an attempt to match his DNA with that found on the sweatshirt.
U.S. District Court Judge Ronald B. Leighton will preside over the jury trial.
