NORTHAMPTON — A Florence man Tuesday pleaded guilty to setting his own house ablaze while he was drunk and depressed last spring.
Defense attorney David Hoose, of Northampton, told Hampshire Superior Court Judge Daniel Ford that his client, Peter C. Zygmont, 63, was in the midst of a episode of depression on April 25, 2015, when he gathered paper scraps, tossed them along with a lit match in a trash can in his home at 111 North Main St., and left for a bar before the house went up in flames.
He also remembers none of this, Hoose contends.
“Is it because you were intoxicated?” Ford asked Zygmont in court.
“Beyond,” Zygmont replied.
Ford accepted the deal reached by Hoose and Assistant Northwestern District Attorney James Forsyth and sentenced Zygmont to 2 ½ years in the House of Correction with credit for 140 days served. The rest of the sentence is to be served on probation. As part of the conditions for his release, Zygmont must abstain from alcohol and complete any counseling recommended by the probation department.
“I take a very dim view of arson,” Ford told Zygmont.
It’s not just because of the property damage from the fire, but also because of the threat it poses to the safety of first responders and Good Samaritans, Ford added.
In the narrative that Hoose and Forsyth offered in court, the day of the blaze was Zygmont’s breaking point. Just the day before, Hoose explained to the judge, wheelchair-bound Zygmont was told by doctors he would likely lose his only remaining leg as a result of an aggressive vascular condition.
So after a day of heavy drinking, Zygmont took a book of matches, according to a police report, and tried to torch a curtain before he successfully started the fire in the garbage can.
Susan Accomando, 37, Zygmont’s friend and caretaker, told police the week of the incident that she watched him set the fire and that he exclaimed to her before leaving with a friend to go to the nearby Veterans of Foreign Wars bar: “There’s my alibi. I’m gonna torch the place.”
More than a dozen firefighters from Northampton and Easthampton responded to the blaze that day. Multiple neighbors also attempted to enter the home, fearing Zygmont was inside, according to the report.
The fire caused an estimated $30,000 in damage, Hoose told the judge.
Zygmont was arrested after Accomando made her report to police. A Northampton District Court judge ordered him held after his arraignment because he was too dangerous to be released, according to court records.
Zygmont was jailed from April to September 2015, when he was released on house arrest pending trial.
“There really was no reason for this,” Hoose said in court. “This was his childhood home he’s now been forced to sell.”
Michael Majchrowicz can be reached at mmajchrowicz@gazettenet.com.