Man sentenced to 5 years in prison for Kings Plaza parking lot arson

September 26, 2019 Jaime DeJesus

Smoke billowing out of the Kings Plaza parking garage where firefighters battled a six-alarm blaze this morning. Photo via FDNY Facebook

Smoke billowing out of the Kings Plaza parking garage on Sept. 17, 2018. Photo via FDNY Facebook

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A Brooklyn man was sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to setting a vehicle on fire in the Kings Plaza Shopping Center parking garage last year.

On Sept. 17, 2018, at around 8:15 a.m. — before the shopping center was open to the public — 23-year-old Evon Stephens went into the area where vehicles were stored by an automobile dealership.

He got inside a Mercedes Benz and set fire to its interior. The flames spread to vehicles throughout the parking garage, damaging 135 vehicles and injuring more than 25 victims.

Surveillance video showed Stephens setting fire to the car and running from the parking garage. It also showed him making an obscene gesture with his hand.

Stephens was arrested hours after the fire broke out.

“This crime senselessly endangered the lives of FDNY members and the public, and caused tremendous property damage,” said FDNY Commissioner Daniel Nigro.

“With the prison sentence he received today, the defendant will be punished for setting a fire that spread to engulf over 100 vehicles, injuring innocent people in its path and endangering the first responders who brought it under control at risk to their own lives,” added United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Richard Donoghue.