Firebug Heads To Prison For Charring Cars in South Ozone Park

An FDNY truck. Photo by Alonso Parra.

By Christina Carrega

A South Ozone Park man was sentenced to up to eight years in prison on Thursday for senselessly setting nine cars ablaze in a three-month tirade.

Evan Person pleaded guilty in November for igniting fires to nine unoccupied cars between December 2017 and February 2018 along 116th Avenue and in front of two homes on 124th Street and 109th Avenue.

“The defendant endangered the welfare of first responders and residents in his community by intentionally setting these vehicles on fire,” said Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown in a statement. “His actions led to the allocation of manpower and resources that could have been spent responding to other pressing matters.”

Person, 29, lived in the same area as the fires. He was sentenced by Queens Supreme Court Justice John Zoll to four to eight years in an upstate prison.

The five badly burned vehicles were a 2006 Nissan, a 1998 Mercedes Benz, a 2000 Ford Excursion, a 2009 Nissan, a 2014 Mercedes Benz, a 1998 Honda Civic, a 2003 Mitsubishi, and a 2008 Kia and a 2004 Buick.