A transient who set fire to the vacant InCahoots dance club in Mission Valley on Christmas Day has pleaded guilty to recklessly burning a structure.
The sentencing for Joel Humphrey, 47, was set for April 8 in San Diego Superior Court. The preliminary hearing that was set for March 17 was canceled.
Humphrey faces a maximum sentence of three years in prison. He remains in the central jail in lieu of $50,000 bail.
The Christmas fire was the third such blaze in the vacant building after the popular country western dance club closed in 2018. Deputy District Attorney Spencer Sharpe said it was “a massive fire” that left it “down to (wooden) studs.”
Sharpe told a judge at the arraignment that Humphrey told an investigator he started a fire inside the building to smoke drugs in a pipe.
“He is a grave danger to public safety,” said Sharpe, who said Humphrey has 15 misdemeanor convictions at his arraignment.
Humphrey’s attorney said the building was “already a total loss” because of the Oct., 2024 fire at InCahoots, and the first fire occured in 2020.
The former dance hall on Mission Center Road has not been occupied since it closed, but the owner has tried to sell it.
It is surrounded by other offices, but the fires did not spread to other buildings.
Humphrey is not suspected of starting the other fires.
Autor de la foto: SanDiegoVille
