A extinct college bus driver used to be ordered held within the help of bars with out a bail on Friday as he awaits trial after being accused of setting fire to 2 Utah college buses, one filled with early life, authorities said.
Michael Austin Ford, 58, of West Valley Metropolis, a Salt Lake Metropolis suburb, used to be ordered detained with out bail by Magistrate Mediate Cecilia M. Romero. She said within the detention expose that Ford used to be a distress “to your total community.”
A federal public defender assigned to the case did no longer immediately respond to a quiz for observation. On Friday, the lawyer filed a circulate asking that Ford’s detention with out bail be reconsidered.
He used to be charged in a federal gigantic jury indictment returned Feb. 21 with two counts of arson of a car of an organization receiving federal funds, the U.S. Attorney’s Place of job for the District of Utah said Saturday.
Ford faces a parallel case in Salt Lake Metropolis District Court that involves charges of aggravated arson, aggravated microscopic one abuse and obstructing justice. An association that gives public defenders for notify court docket defendants did no longer immediately respond to a quiz for observation.
Federal prosecutors narrate he used to be on the job as a bus driver for Salt Lake Metropolis’s Granite College District when he position fire to buses on Feb. 24, 2022 and April 7, 2023, per the indictment in his federal case.
In the 2022 incident, 42 college early life had been on board, federal prosecutors said in a submitting final month that argues the defendant needs to be held with out bail. Narrate prosecutors said there had been 66 early life on board.
A district spokesperson quick NBC Recordsdata affiliate KSL of Salt Lake Metropolis that the college students on board attended a within reach secondary college and that none had been injured.
In that blaze, federal prosecutors said, the defendant persevered riding as flames grew below the dashboard and smoke wafted into the cabin toward the early life. Security video captured the incident, they said.
“Minutes after the Defendant started the fire, he continues to power the bus, undeterred by every originate flame and smoke billowing previous his face,” federal prosecutors said in their detention arguments final month.
“The Defendant top stops the bus when early life are seen and heard on video coughing, conserving their faces, and complaining about smoke,” prosecutors added.
Sooner than the 2023 incident, federal prosecutors said, the defendant tampered with a video system on board a bus he outmoded, making an try to block a digicam’s watch. On the other hand, the district enabled the system to legend regardless, and authorities had been in a web page to note imagery from that incident, too, per KSL, which cites charging paperwork filed by notify prosecutors.
Narrate prosecutors alleged Ford outmoded a “thumb-strike lighter” in that 2023 incident, and they claimed every fires originated below the automobile’s dashboard, KSL reported.
Federal prosecutors described the provision of the two fires for which Ford is charged as an “incendiary instrument.”
The U.S. Attorney’s Place of job said in its assertion Saturday that Ford “used to be again riding a Granite College District bus in web page traffic when he used to be captured on video igniting a hearth on the bus” in April 2023.
“All over again, Ford persevered to power the bus with smoke billowing previous his face,” the position of business said.
In her detainment expose, judge Romero expressed “considerations in terms of his psychological notify.” She cited “the delayed response to inserting out the bus fire” to boot to fires associated to his house and car, reported by prosecutors after the 2023 bus blaze.
Furthermore, prosecutors said within the detainment submitting that Ford “has acknowledged to investigators his involvement in three prior bus fires for busses he used to be riding. These fires came about in 2017, 2016, and around 2001 or 2002.”
In 2017, a Granite College District bus fire made nationwide news headlines in response to the strength of on-scene video. The district quick KSL that Ford used to be riding the automobile, but that no early life had been on board.
“For the 2017 incident, there appears to be like to had been an origination of the fire within the entrance lope build of the bus, as is the case within the arsons alleged within the Indictment,” federal prosecutors wrote in their detention submitting final month.
After he used to be arrested three days following the 2023 fire, police alleged that Ford is associated to eight fires since 2009. Ford has no longer been charged in reference to any other fires in addition to these on Feb. 24, 2022 and April 7, 2023.
The district said it placed Ford on leave as he used to be being investigated earlier than his arrest, and that it finally terminated him.
District spokesperson Ben Horsley quick KSL that Ford had passed “appropriate background checks as required by regulation” earlier than he used to be employed in 1998.
Dennis Romero
Dennis Romero is a breaking news reporter for NBC Recordsdata Digital.