A Solano County Superior Court docket decide earlier this month sentenced a 44-year-old Fairfield man to 10 years in state jail for a 2017 firebombing spree in Fairfield, The Reporter has discovered.
Matthew Scott Jones on March 1 heard Decide Carlos R. Gutierrez hand down the punishment in Division 9 within the Justice Heart in Fairfield, a spokeswoman for the Solano County District Lawyer’s Workplace, Monica Martinez, confirmed on Monday.
The sentencing got here after a Nov. 19 trial-setting continuing throughout which Jones pleaded no contest to at least one rely of arson and three counts of setting off — or making an attempt to set off — an explosive gadget, all felonies.
In an settlement with Deputy Public Defender Sara Johnson, Deputy District Lawyer Mary Nguyen dismissed two counts of tried homicide towards Jones, courtroom data present. Court docket paperwork didn't point out why an preliminary hate crime cost was not among the many costs dropped or sustained.
With the plea settlement, Jones, who beforehand had been declared mentally competent to face trial, averted the opportunity of extra jail time had he been discovered responsible at trial for the tried homicide costs.
Court docket data present that at 10 p.m. April 27, 2017, Fairfield cops responded to a fireplace on the Woodsong Village Flats on North Texas Avenue. Investigators decided a do-it-yourself explosive gadget had been thrown by way of the window of an occupied house there.
Each victims had been in a position to escape the house; nonetheless, the explosive gadget precipitated “substantial injury” to the house, Solano County District Lawyer Krishna Abrams mentioned in a ready assertion on the time. Police data additionally indicated that Jones had been utilizing racial slurs towards his neighbors within the house advanced.
About half-hour later, Fairfield officers responded to a report of a car hearth on Thames Court docket. Investigators decided a do-it-yourself explosive gadget had been thrown by way of the window of a parked car.
On the next morning, at about 1 a.m., there was one other explosion in entrance of the Fairfield Police Division. Throughout that investigation, it was later decided that a do-it-yourself explosive gadget had been thrown towards the division entrance at 1000 Webster St.
At 10 a.m. that very same morning, the officers discovered a fourth do-it-yourself explosive gadget on the Nexeo chemical plant on Crocker Circle.
With the assistance of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, investigators had been in a position to decide that Jones was accountable for all 4 firebombings. He was later arrested and booked with out bail into Solano County Jail in Fairfield.
For a time, Jones was deemed mentally incompetent. The case was faraway from management of the Solano County Superior Court docket in Could 2019. Jones was dedicated to a state hospital on Could 30, 2019, for a most of two years, courtroom data present. Nonetheless, he was deemed mentally competent to face trial on Sept. 1, 2020, and Gutierrez reinstated prison proceedings on Sept. 18.
Beneath state regulation, a defended can't be tried if she or he is deemed mentally incompetent and unable to assist with protection whereas the incompetency lasts. As soon as psychological competence has been restored, nonetheless, authorized proceedings, together with a jury trial, might start.
Jones’ case was beforehand suspended on March 12, 2018, and, three days later, Gutierrez appointed a physician to look at the defendant to find out his psychological competency to face trial and the necessity to administer antipsychotic medication.
Legal proceedings had been reinstated on Dec. 5, 2018, the identical day a confidential verdict was delivered, in line with courtroom data. A jury had discovered Jones competent to face trial.
Nguyen’s arguments appeared to sway the panel of eight males and 4 girls, along with her asserting that the defendant was “in a position to articulate” to FBI and Fairfield police investigators why he did what he did.
In the course of the trial, Johnson mentioned that Jones suffered from schizoaffective dysfunction, a hybrid psychological situation that features schizophrenia, bipolar dysfunction and melancholy. She mentioned her consumer suffered from delusions, claiming Jones’ alleged violent acts had been basically symptomatic of somebody experiencing the identical “fastened delusions,” that attorneys and the group at massive had been persecuting him.