Authorities make arrest in arson fire at Florida mosque

FORT PIERCE, Fla. (AP) – A 32-year-old Florida man has been arrested and is facing a charge of arson with a hate crime enhancement in connection with a fire that heavily damaged the mosque that Orlando nightclub gunman Omar Mateen occasionally attended, authorities announced Wednesday.

Joseph Michael Schreiber was arrested without incident Wednesday afternoon and was being interrogated by investigators probing a fire set late Sunday that extensively damaged the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce, said Maj. David Thompson of the St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Office.

Thompson told a news conference that Schreiber was taken into custody on a street in Fort Pierce by authorities acting on tips from members of the community and aided by surveillance video taken from the mosque and elsewhere. He said the arson charge, coupled with a hate crime enhancement under Florida law, could bring up to 30 years in prison in event of a conviction.

The fire was set late Sunday on the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks. The blaze also coincided with the Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha.

Thompson said a search warrant was executed at Schreiber’s home, where investigators reported finding evidence linked to the arson, as well as anti-Islamic social media posts.

Schreiber was previously sentenced twice to state prison for theft, records. The Florida Department of Corrections records show he served his first stretch from March 2008 to July 2009 and his second from June 2010 to August 2014.

It wasn’t immediately clear if Schreiber had an attorney.

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.

Mateen was killed by police after opening fire at the Pulse nightclub June 12 in a rampage that left 49 victims dead and 53 wounded. He professed allegiance to the Islamic State group. His father is among roughly 100 people who attend the mosque.

A weekend surveillance video from the mosque showed a man on a motorcycle approaching the building with a bottle of liquid and some papers, then leaving when there was a flash and shaking his hand as though he may have burned it, Thompson said. The first 911 calls were made about 45 minutes later after the fire had spread to the attic. It took about 4.5 hours for firefighters to extinguish the blaze.

No one had claimed responsibility for the attack, authorities said.

The FBI and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives joined the investigation into the fire. Sheriff’s officials had released the video and asked for the public’s help in identifying the arsonist.

The fire was part of an escalating series of threats and violence perpetuated against the mosque and its members, said Wilfredo Amr Ruiz, a Florida spokesman for the Council of American-Islamic Relations. He said the mosque began receiving threatening phone calls shortly after the Pulse massacre. And in July, he said, a member was punched in the face as he arrived for morning prayers.

Sunday’s fire has left the mosque’s members “saddened and scared,” said assistant imam Hamaad Rahman.