Jason Ve Stephens has spent 180 days in jail and may not have to serve any more time for a fire he helped set last fall, Ramsey County District Judge Margaret (Peg) Marrinan said Wednesday. He will be on probation for 10 years.
The judge hung a 28-month sentence over his head and said she "will not tolerate any missteps" and will send him to prison if he violates his probation.
Stephens, 22, pleaded guilty to second-degree arson in April. According to the complaint, Nicole L. Jensen, 24, was being evicted from her St. Paul apartment and had no place to go. She and Stephens, her boyfriend, assumed that if they were displaced by fire, they'd get help from the Red Cross.
The complaint said Stephens set the fire in a pile of clothes and left the apartment.
The Nov. 25 fire at 1067 Van Dyke St. caused an estimated $200,000 damage.
Marrinan scolded Stephens for missing his original sentencing date in May and for not keeping in touch with the probation officer who wrote the pre-sentencing report. She gave him an 18-month stayed sentence for those offenses.
Defense attorney Corey Sherman told the judge that Stephens has sickle cell anemia and that he was "basically immobile" and unable to make the original date.
Jensen pleaded guilty in March and received a 57-month stayed sentence. She was ordered to serve a year in jail and be on probation for 20 years.
