A Merrillville man was sentenced to 9 years in prison Thursday after admitting he set a woman’s house on fire while she was on route to the county courthouse to file a protection order against him.
Thomas Kuesis, 55, was charged July 17, 2021 with arson, a Level 4 felony, and misdemeanor invasion of privacy, according to court records. He signed a plea filed in October.
“Whatever demons you have in that brain of yours, you have to figure that out,” Lake Superior Judge Salvador Vasquez told him Thursday.
Lake County Community Corrections found him ineligible to finish his prison term on probation, which means it would be straight time in the Indiana Department of Corrections.
The woman called the police around 1:26 p.m. July 16, 2021 on the 8900 block of 91st Court in Merrillville after she saw Kuesis walking nearby, court documents state. The woman told police she already had a no-contact order against him. At the time of the fire, she was going to court to file for a protection order, documents state.
He was “trespassing” and holding a white plastic bag under his arm while walking toward her home, the affidavit states. The woman left the home. Police didn’t find him. She came back to find her house on fire, the affidavit states.
A witness told police he saw a man fitting Kuesis’ description running away from the home around 3 p.m., carrying a white plastic bag under his arm. The man repeatedly looked back toward the house, he said. When shown a photo of Kuesis, the witness said that was the man he saw, charges state.
Kuesis was located and arrested around 8:30 p.m. walking on an access road on the 3900 block of U.S. 30, police said.
During an interview, he said he still got mail at the woman’s address, but hadn’t been there for a month. Police asked him to give a detailed timeline of where he was that day. That morning he went to ICU court monitoring, a church to call his lawyer, then walked around U.S. 30, he told police.
He had a court date with the woman around 2 p.m. that day, Kuesis said. His lawyer advised him that he didn’t need to be there, the affidavit says. He ran into the woman near 93rd Avenue and Randolph Street driving away around 2 p.m., he said. She stopped and honked her horn, asking where he was going. Kuesis claimed he wasn’t walking toward her house, charges state.
Officials from ICU monitoring told police the GPS tracker on Kuesis’ ankle monitor put him within 20 feet of the woman’s home from 2:17 p.m. to 2:47 p.m. that day, records state.
Attorney Roseann Ivanovich was Kuesis’ court-appointed public defender, while Tara Villarreal prosecuted the case.
