EX-SCU professor faces arson charges
A former Santa Clara University professor was indicted by a federal grand jury Nov. 18 on charges that he started four wildland fires in Northern California in an arson spree that endangered the lives of firefighters battling the massive Dixie Fire.
Gary Stephen Maynard, 47, of San Jose faces up to 20 years in prison and $250,000 in fines for each count of arson to federal property, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of California.
The indictment charges Maynard with setting four fires over the course of two weeks in July and August, including the Cascade and Everitt fires, and the Ranch and Conard fires set on in Lassen County. He also has been linked, but not charged, in connection with the Moon Fire, which ignited in Lassen County during the same time period.
Prosecutors say Maynard intentionally set the blazes behind the Dixie Fire lines, leaving crews working to fight that blaze at risk of being trapped. The fire — which burned nearly 1 million acres across the Sierras — was the second-largest in California history and killed one person.
United States Forest Service investigators first suspected Maynard was setting fires July 20, when a person encountered him near the site of the Cascade Fire, according to an arrest affidavit. The former professor asked a fellow motorist for help towing his Kia Soul, and became agitated when he was turned down.
Investigators say tire impressions from the Kia matched others found at the Everitt Fire a day later. And a tracker attached to Maynard’s Kia placed him near the Ranch and Conard fires a couple of weeks later in the Lassen National Forest, according to the affidavit.
Maynard was arrested in an emergency closure area near the Conard Fire and denied starting any fires when interviewed by U.S. Forest Service agents.
At one point, he “became enraged and began kicking the jail cell door and screamed, ‘I’m going to kill you, (expletive) pig! I told those (expletive) I didn’t start any of those fires!’ ” according to the affidavit.
Maynard — who is currently being held without bail in Sacramento County Jail — was an adjunct faculty member in the sociology department of Santa Clara University from September 2019 to December 2020 and previously had lectured at Sonoma State University on criminal justice, cults and deviant behavior.
He ranks among several Bay Area people suspected of starting fires across California during a summer fire season that was among the most destructive in state history.
A Palo Alto woman, Alexandra Souverneva, faces felony arson charges in Shasta and Monterey counties after investigators suspect she went on a fire-setting spree in August and September. On Nov. 16, Souverneva was deemed mentally unfit to stand trial on charges that she started the Fawn Fire, which destroyed 185 structures and injured three people outside Redding.