Man Pleads Not Guilty To Setting Fatal Brooklyn Fire
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The Guatemalan man police say confessed to setting Saturday's deadly fire in Brooklyn is being held on murder and arson charges after being arraigned overnight.
He pled not guilty at the arraignment.
Daniel Ignacio, 27, lived in the Bensonhurst building where the fire broke out and killed five people.
Police sources say he told officers he was drunk when he doused a roll of toilet paper with paint thinner, lit it on fire, and threw it in a baby carriage near the front entrance of the building.
He reportedly told police that demons made him do it.
Sources say after he lit the fire, he said he went upstairs and fell asleep in his apartment, but later woke up when he heard the commotion.
He then helped get a two-year-old boy out of the burning building.
That boy's mother, Luisa Ordoñez de Chan, was killed in the fire.
Family members could not believe that someone who lived in the building stands accused of the crime.
"It's pretty much a mix match feeling. Some are feeling anger. Some of them are crying,” said Pastor Eric Salgado, a spokesman for the Chan family. “They cannot believe that somebody could do something like that and hurt so many people."
Investigators say Ignacio was in the country illegally.
He was deported to Guatemala in 2003 after he pleaded guilty to burglary and served 10 months in jail.