SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A college professor in Northern California was charged on Tuesday with multiple counts of arson near the raging Dixie Fire, which is now being referred to as the worst single-source wildfire in the state’s history.
Gary Stephen Maynard was arrested on Saturday, and made an appearance Tuesday in federal court in Sacramento. The criminal complaint charges him with intentionally setting the Ranch Fire in Lassen County. Hence, he could potentially face up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, Post Millennial reported.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Anderson sought Maynard’s confinement while the case progresses through court.
“There are simply no conditions that could be fashioned that could ensure the safety of the public with respect to this defendant,” Anderson told U.S. Magistrate Judge Kendall J. Newman.
“Over the course of the last several weeks, Maynard has set a series of fires in the vicinity of the Lassen National Forest and Shasta Trinity National Forest…” wrote Anderson in a detention memo.
“The area in which Maynard chose to set his fires is near the ongoing Dixie fire, a fire which is still not contained despite the deployment and efforts of over 5,000 personnel.”
Maynard, 47, has professional ties to colleges like Santa Clara University and Sonoma State University in California as a criminal justice studies lecturer specializing in criminal justice, cults and deviant behavior, according to The Sacramento Bee.
Santa Clara University confirmed that Maynard had been employed by the school, saying, “Gary Maynard was an adjunct faculty member in the sociology department at Santa Clara University from September 2019 to December 2020.”
Sonoma State spokeswoman Julia Gonzalez confirmed Maynard’s connection to the school, but told The Bee that he no longer works with the university.
“He was a part-time lecturer in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice,” she wrote in an email. “He was employed with Sonoma State University in Fall 2020, but did not have an appointment for Spring 2021.”
“Mr. Maynard was contracted to fill in for a faculty member who was on leave. He taught two seminars in Criminology and Criminal Justice Studies in Fall 2020,” she added.
Maynard denied being involved in the arsons, at one point getting angry once being booked into the Lassen County Jail, according to Post Millennial.
“I’m going to kill you, f*cking pig!” Maynard yelled, according to court documents. “I told those f*cking I didn’t start any of those fires!”
