A firebug who started a Queens apartment building blaze that injured three firefighters admitted he started the blaze because his roommates kicked him out and wouldn’t let him get his stuff.
Atahualpa Rodriguez, 50, pleaded guilty to a federal arson charge Wednesday, admitting he threw a Molotov cocktail into a sixth-floor apartment window in Flushing on Jan. 12, 2022, a day after he got into an argument with the apartment’s tenants.
Police sources at the time suggested the fight was over a drug deal gone bad. But Rodriguez said in court Tuesday that he acted in a drug-fueled rage after police wouldn’t let him back into the apartment to get his property a day earlier.
“That’s all I wanted. My property. My titles for the car, my clothes worth $30,000, everything, shoes,” Rodriguez told Brooklyn Federal Court Judge Allyne Ross. “They didn’t want to let me get it, so I got real drugged up.”
At about 4:40 a.m., one of the apartment tenants heard a whoosh, the sound of breaking glass and Rodriguez saying, “F— you all,” according to a criminal complaint.
The flames gutted the apartment, and firefighters needed several hours to put out the blaze. One of them suffered injuries after a ceiling collapse, a second got first-degree burns and a third breathed in contaminated air.
Federal prosecutors pegged the damage to the 175-unit building at Parsons Blvd. and 34th Ave. at $1 million.
Video surveillance helped FDNY fire marshals identify Rodriguez as the culprit, and the feds got a warrant for his arrest two months after the blaze.
Rodriguez fled to California, but was arrested in May 2023 on domestic violence charges in Los Angeles, law enforcement sources said. He gave a different name, but his fingerprints revealed his identity, the sources said. In September 2023 he was brought to Brooklyn to face justice in the arson case.
“Today, the defendant admitted that he deliberately set fire to an apartment building in the predawn darkness while many tenants slept, causing the destruction of one apartment unit, damage to surrounding units and injuries to the brave first responders who battled the blaze,” U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said.
Rodriguez struggled to explain whether he intended to set a fire as he admitted his crime to the judge, telling her, “I just wanted to scare them, really, and everything went wrong.”
Ross pressed, “It didn’t occur to you that it might burn?” to which he replied, “Well, I guess.”
Rodriguez also told the judge that he was a drug user in the 1990s and 2000s, and went into a program for narcotics after an arrest. After Rodriguez’s doctor went on vacation and he couldn’t get his meds, he relapsed and never broke free from his addiction, he said.
Though the maximum sentence is 20 years, federal sentencing guidelines mean he’ll likely see a sentence between five and six years behind bars. The arson charge carries a mandatory five-year minimum sentence.
The judge initially set an April sentencing, but Rodriguez and his lawyer, Sabrina Shroff, asked for an earlier date, because “MDC’s just horrible,” referring to the MDC Brooklyn federal jail, which is notorious for violence, medical mistreatment, rotten food and atrocious conditions.
“Please, it’s just messed up,” Rodriguez told Ross, who set his sentencing date for March 25 and said she’d consider an earlier date if one becomes available.
“The sooner, the better,” Rodriguez responded, his voice reduced to a whimper. “Next month.”
