New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Shakespeare theater arsonist gets 10 years
BRIDGEPORT — A Stratford man, sentenced Friday to 10 years in prison for setting fires in four communities including the blaze that burned the American Shakespeare Theater to the ground, told the judge he wants to work as a welder when he is released.
“I want to take the bad and use it for good. I want to work on the buildings I destroyed,” said Christopher Sakowicz.
Supervisory Assistant State’s Attorney Howard Stein told Superior Court Judge Kevin Russo that while he supported the plea bargain, he is concerned about what would happen when Sakowicz gets out of prison.
“No sentence the court is going to impose is going to keep him incarcerated for the rest of his life, so he is going to come out of jail at some point. And when he does come out of jail he clearly has issues that need to be addressed,” the prosecutor said.
Sakowicz’s lawyer, Public Defender Joseph Bruckmann, told the judge his client has a long history of mental illness and had been sexually assaulted by two men when he was a child.
“He had issues that were beyond his control,” Bruckmann said.
According to a psychiatric report submitted to the judge, Sakowicz used to walk around with a lighter in his pocket just in case he was kidnapped.
The 20-year-old Sakowicz previously pleaded guilty to three counts of seconddegree arson and one count each of thirddegree arson and first-degree criminal mischief.
He had been charged with the Jan. 13, 2019, fire that destroyed the American Shakespeare Theater in Stratford; the Jan. 15, 2019, fire in a vacant building at the Southbury Training School; the Feb. 17, 2019, fire at the former Bilco Co. in West Haven; the March 9, 2019, fire at Good Earth Tree Care on Longbrook
Ave. in Stratford that destroyed a truck; and the March 24, 2019, fire that damaged construction trailers at Silver Sands State Park in Milford.
Stein agreed to drop his prosecution of Sakowicz in another fire, the Feb. 8, 2019, fire in a vacant house on Richards Place in West Haven, as part of the plea bargain.
In addition to the 10 years in prison,
Russo ordered Sakowicz placed on 15 years special parole and to undergo psychiatric treatment.
“Although the productions ceased many years ago at the Shakespeare Theater, memories of those productions remain for many. Memories of youth and hope and poetry were erased by violence, and in doing so you placed in jeopardy the lives of first responders,” the judge told Sakowicz. “Your final act proved to be a senseless one that deserves a sentence proportioned to the loss.”
Sakowicz had been accused of setting the fires with two other teens, 19-year-old Vincent Keller and 18-year-old Logan Caraballo. Both of them are also facing arson charges, but are not considered as culpable in the fires as Sakowicz. They are awaiting trial.
Following the theater fire, police said the teens posted a video on SnapChat saying they set the fire. The video was circulated around Bunnell High School in Stratford, where both Sakowicz and Keller were seniors.
Police said Sakowicz later told them the teens had broken into the theater basement through an unlocked rear door and that he had lit the fire using gasoline he had brought with him. On the way out of the burning theater, Sakowicz told police he had grabbed a security alarm panel as a souvenir.
Sakowitz and Keller later rode their bicycles to the theater site to watch it burn, police said.