Suspected Arsonist Sentenced Today

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Good, another vigilante off the streets.

04/24/2007

36-year-old Mastic resident Donald Keegan was sentenced this morning in Riverhead for plotting to burn a residence that housed registered sex offenders. Judge Barbara Kahn sentenced Keegan to seven years imprisonment for pleading guilty to attempted arson in the second degree as well as three to nine years in prison for second degree conspiracy. Keegan will also get five years post release supervision on the attempted arson charge.

Keegan was a Suffolk county employee and a part-time landscaper who lived less than a mile from the residence he planned to burn down. An undercover investigation by the district attorney’s office led to Keegan’s arrest in September. Detectives recorded Keegan’s plans to burn the residence on surveillance cameras. Keegan had paint thinner and a road flare in the front seat of his Mustang when detectives arrested him. A pit was found in Keegan’s home where tests were run to see how quick paint thinner burns.

The sex-offender home at 115 Eleanor Avenue had risk-level three sex offenders, which, according to Megan’s Law, are the most likely to repeat their offenses. Residents and community leaders protested the residence, which was near a school. After Keegan’s arrest, state officials ordered the eviction of the residents. Despite her outrage at the location of the residence, Parents for Megan’s Law founder Laura Ahearn did not approve of Keegan’s plans. “It’s completely unacceptable what Keegan did,” she previously told the Long Island Press, adding that he should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.