An ex-convict who posted anti-Islamic rants online confessed to setting fire to a mosque that the Orlando nightclub shooter occasionally attended, and said he was embarrassed by the crime, according to an arrest affidavit released Thursday.
St. Lucie County sheriff’s detectives writes in the affidavit that after Joseph Michael Schreiber was arrested Wednesday, he told detectives that he had set the fire at the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce on Sunday, the 15th anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks. The blaze also coincided with the Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha.
Schreiber, 32, told detectives he never intended to hurt anyone. No one was injured in the fire, which burned a 10-by-10-foot hole in the roof at the back of the mosque’s main building and blackened its eaves with soot.
Schreiber, who previously served two prison terms for theft, was developed as a suspect partly because of a tip from the public, the affidavit says.
He was arrested without incident Wednesday and charged with second-degree arson with a hate crime enhancement, a crime that carries a maximum 30-year sentence.
— AP
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