Who is accused of burning down Leesburg's Masonic Lodge?

LEESBURG – Authorities have arrested and charged a 22-year-old man with burglary and arson in the June 14 blaze that destroyed Masonic Lodge 58. And now they have added five new charges of making explosive devices that were so powerful that the defendant decided they were too dangerous to use in setting the fire.

Arrest affidavits in the case of Luke S. Pratt, 22, detail his confession, his paranoia, and how his family turned him in.

More than 30 firefighters from 13 fire trucks and engine companies from the Leesburg and Lake County fire departments raced to 200 Richey Road about 10:30 p.m. June 14 to find the 8,700-square-foot building engulfed in flames.

“We were out there all night,” one firefighter said.

They were greeted by lodge member Brian Zeppa, who showed investigators surveillance camera video of a man entering the building with a gas can and a baseball bat. He leaves the property moments later without the gas can or bat.

“Six minutes later, Luke drives back into the view of the surveillance on the side of the building and exits the vehicle. Luke again walks back to the front of the lodge and out of surveillance view. One minute later Luke reappears in view of the surveillance running back to his vehicle and leaving,” according to an arrest affidavit.

“The video is blurry,” said Leesburg Deputy Fire Chief Ryan Henry. “But you can see his vehicle and other details.”

Four days later, while having Sunday dinner at his mother’s house in Marion County, Pratt reportedly confessed to setting the fire. She called the Marion County Sheriff’s Office, and deputies involuntarily committed him to a mental health facility. It would soon become clear why he was held under the state’s Baker Act.

On June 21, Detective Robert Harvey with the state’s Bureau of Fire, Arson and Explosive received a call from Lake County Sheriff’s investigators, saying they were at Pratt’s home in the 3200 block of Casteen Road, less than a mile from the lodge. They were there to recover homemade explosive devices. Luke’s mother, Rebecca Pratt, was also there.

Luke has a distinctive walk, she told Harvey, and she described his vehicle.

“I showed the surveillance video to Rebecca from the night of the fire,” Harvey noted in his report. “She began to cry and identified the male suspect as her son Luke Pratt.”

Harvey also showed the video to Luke’s brother and his girlfriend, and they identified Luke and said he carried a “stick” in his vehicle and identified a hat shown in the video as belonging to Luke.

Harvey then called Pratt, who was still at a facility receiving a mental health evaluation.

“Luke stated he is mad at what the Masonic Lodge stands for and he believes they are following him,” the report says.

He confessed to starting the fire. He said first he watched the building with binoculars from a bowling alley parking lot across the street to make sure everyone was out of the building.

He said he poured gasoline throughout the entire building. He said he re-entered the building when he came back to make sure the fire had started, according to the report.

Harvey said he recovered the hat from Pratt’s vehicle and journals he kept detailing his feelings about Masons.

The arrest report said he turned himself in at the Lake County jail on June 22, just before midnight. He was held on $15,000 bail on the arson and burglary charges and $5,000 for the explosive devices charges.

Those devices were plastic devices with a “white pearl-like substance inside,” according to the Lake County sheriff’s arrest report. “A package of suspected aluminum powder taped to the container also had a hole with a large firework inserted inside with a lightable wick protruding from the device.”

Lake Sheriff’s Detective Jone Demko figured the contents to be ammonium nitrate and aluminum powder.

It was a 4,800-pound ammonium nitrate and oil bomb in a truck that killed 168 people and injured 850 in the Oklahoma City domestic terrorist attack on the federal courthouse in 1995.

Richard Lynn, the Masons grand secretary at state headquarters in Jacksonville, said the Leesburg lodge will be rebuilt. The lodge has 134 dues-paying members who now are meeting at another lodge until theirs new one can be built.

Unfortunately, the lodge did not have fire insurance, but Lynn is confident that the Masons, who he says donate more than $4 million per day to charities, will help fund the project. Some artifacts, including photos, are irreplaceable, Lynn said.

A Facebook post says the original Leesburg lodge was founded in 1868.

It is not clear from arrest reports what Pratt believed about the Masons.

“Freemasonry is a brotherhood of men committed to lives of honor, integrity and character,” according to beafreemason.org. It is not a religion, but members are required to believe in a “Supreme Being.”

Its roots go back to medieval times when stone cutters working on cathedrals bonded together.

Lynn said the organization is misunderstood, especially by conspiracy theorists, whose beliefs range from Masons being in control of the government to being members of the Illuminati, a secret group created 200 years ago to oppose religious influence on daily life. The group is sometimes lumped in with concerns about the FBI and CIA, Lynn said.

“We are not a secret society.” Lynn said.

This article originally appeared on Daily Commercial: Arson alleged in June 14 burning of Leesburg's Masonic Lodge 58