Arson at group home sends man to prison
A Buffalo man who caused $125,000 damage to his West Side group home last year was sentenced Wednesday to 3 1/2 years in prison on his arson plea.
Louis N. Friol III, 47, has been jailed since his arrest six days after the fire that destroyed the group home that housed him and 15 other people. He pleaded guilty to a felony arson charge in the case March 19.
Erie County Judge Sheila A. DiTullio told Friol he had committed a “serious crime” but she will recommend he receive mental health treatment in state prison.
Friol, a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic who acquired a minor criminal record living at various locations in Buffalo, Angola, Amherst and Lockport, set the fire in the closet of his top-floor apartment at the rooming house at 83 Prospect Ave. at about 6:30 p. m. May 1, 2007, according to court records.
Lauren A. Rott, chief of the Erie County district attorney’s Arson Bureau, said that after Friol was taken into custody six days after the fire he told Fire Marshals Brian Martinez and Kevin Lozano he didn’t want to live at the group home any longer.
Rott said Friol and 15 other residents of the group home were temporarily housed in a hotel and assisted by the American Red Cross after the early evening fire. Though none of the residents was injured in the fire, two firefighters suffered minor injuries in dealing with it, Rott said.
