Group that firebombed home sent to state prison

After a night out, Sheila Snyder was driving back to her Upper Macungie Township mobile home when she saw the flashing lights of firetrucks and flames shooting into the air.

“Right away, I knew it was my trailer,” she said, weeping in a Lehigh County courtroom. “All I could think was, my animals, where are my animals?”

Snyder’s pets — a dog, two cats, two birds, a hamster and numerous fish — were killed in the Oct. 27 blaze that completely gutted her home and destroyed all her belongings. On Monday, three Berks County residents were sent to state prison for their parts in an alcohol-fueled revenge plan that ended with five people showing up at Snyder’s residence and tossing homemade firebombs at it.

Wonda L. Haberstumpf, 42, of Kutztown, Marcanthony Gonzalez, 19, of Mohnton and Joseph Newman-Bey, 62, of Maxatawny Township, were each sentenced to three to 15 years in state prison followed by five years of probation.

Haberstumpf’s son, Dean L. Haberstumpf, 18, of Kutztown was sentenced to three to 15 years behind bars at a prior hearing. Haberstumpf’s daughter, a juvenile who was not identified in court, was found delinquent and is being supervised by juvenile court officials.

“These are crimes that make absolutely no sense,” said Chief Deputy District Attorney Lisa Cipoletti. “If you have a problem with someone … you don’t blow up their home, destroying all their belongings and killing their pets.”

The firebombing occurred around 12:30 a.m. at the Green Acres Mobile Home Park at 1036 Cherry Tree Crossing. Police responding to 911 calls found the home engulfed in flames and several incendiary devices, made using glass liquor bottles filled with a flammable liquid and a cloth rag, on the ground outside. Two were still burning.

Officers saw Wonda Haberstumpf in a car leaving the mobile home park and recognized her as someone who visited Snyder often. She was questioned several hours later, after being arrested along with the others for barging into a Berks County home and assaulting the residents that same morning, prosecutors said.

Wonda and Dean Haberstumpf, and Gonzalez, pleaded guilty to arson and conspiracy, both felonies. Newman-Bey, who claimed in court that he suffers from memory lapses, pleaded no contest to identical charges.

All four were previously sentenced in Berks County for the home invasion, which stemmed from an argument over a tattoo bill the juvenile owed, prosecutors said Monday.

Snyder was visibly upset during the sentencing hearing and at one point asked if she could punch Newman-Bey in the face, then quickly apologized to Judge James T. Anthony.

“I’m very angry, very hurt,” she said. “The loss of my animals was very hard. Burying them was very hard. I just don’t understand why they would do this.”

Victim advocates brought in Ramona, the district attorney’s office comfort dog, so Snyder could pet her during the hearing to calm her nerves.

Gonzalez and Newman-Bey each apologized to Snyder, though they reiterated that they could remember little of the arson. Wonda Haberstumpf previously blamed the incident on Newman-Bey, her boyfriend, saying he “hyped up the situation” while they were drinking and taught her children and Gonzalez — her daughter’s boyfriend — how to make the firebombs.

Wonda Haberstumpf and Snyder were close friends who had a falling out shortly before the firebombing, police said.

Anthony ordered the defendants to jointly pay more than $88,000 restitution.

“This was dangerous stuff. Wow,” the judge said. “Just a terrible spree by these five individuals.”

“If you have a problem with someone ... you don’t blow up their home, destroying all their belongings and killing their pets.” — Chief Deputy District Attorney Lisa Cipoletti