Ex-firefighter gets house arrest for JJ's Pub arson in Hanson

PLYMOUTH ― A former Boston firefighter was sentenced Friday after he and two other people set fire to an abandoned restaurant in Hanson back in 2018, leaving two firefighters injured, Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy J. Cruz said.

Alfred C. Russo, 81, of Bourne, pleaded guilty in Plymouth County Superior Court to one count of burning of a dwelling and two counts of arson causing injuries to a firefighter.

Superior Court Judge Mark Hallal sentenced Russo on Friday, Jan. 13, 2023, to four years of probation to be served under house arrest wearing a GPS monitoring bracelet, despite the Commonwealth's request Russo be sentenced to 2-and-a-half years in the House of Corrections, a written statement from the DA's office said.

What happened?

On July 6, 2018 at approximately 2:54 p.m., the Hanson Fire Department received a report of a fire at JJ’s Pub, an abandoned commercial property at 16 Liberty St.

"Upon arrival, firefighters discovered the interior of the structure to be fully engulfed in fire," a written statement from the district attorney's office said. Two Hanson firefighters sustained "heat exhaustion injuries in battling the blaze," and the building was "deemed a total loss as a result of this fire."

Investigators found the other two suspects, Patricia Harrison, 63, the owner of the abandoned property, and her acquaintance, Wayne Cummings, 52, "enlisted aid from Russo to set fire to the pub."

Russo was a member of the Boston Fire Department from 1969 to 1995, when he retired as a firefighter assigned to the Marine Unit.

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Investigators said they were able to identify Russo through witness statements and video surveillance from a business located across the street from the former pub.

"Viewing of the video revealed that a party parked a vehicle on the B side and entered the building through the B side entry door," State Police Trooper Thomas M. Berteletti, who is assigned to the state fire marshal's office, wrote in a police report. "That party remained in the building for approximately 7 minutes and 45 seconds. The party then exits, enters a vehicle and drives away."

Just six minutes later, smoke can be seen venting from the roof, court documents state, and three minutes after that, fire is visible from the roof.

The day after the fire, Harrison filed a $415,000 insurance claim with her provider.

Police spoke to the owner of the property, Harrison, who told investigators she was at her home in Bourne with Russo when she received the call that there was a fire at the pub. Cummings told police he was out walking his dog when Harrison received the call about the fire.

Harrison told investigators she hadn't been at the building in about two weeks, when she was there trying to clean it out "in hopes of selling the property," court documents state.

Russo, in an interview with police two weeks after the fire, "spontaneously stated that he was driving his Jeep in Hanson on the day of the fire," Berteletti wrote in his report. Police say the vehicle seen on surveillance video leaving the pub shortly after the setting of the fire was a Jeep.

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Russo told police he went to Hanson to attend a cookout at Harrison's sister-in-law's house the day of the fire, but decided not to go because he wasn't feeling well, the police report states. He admitted to driving onto the JJ's Pub property to move a generator with his utility trailer, but said he never went inside, court documents state.

The property owner identified the vehicle seen leaving JJ's on video as the Jeep owned by Russo.

"It is this officer's opinion that the fire was either ignited in multiple locations or that the fire was accelerated by use of an ignitable liquid or heavy concentration of combustibles throughout the interior," Berteletti wrote.

Investigators could not enter the building to investigate further due to a partial collapse. Soon after, the building was demolished. JJ's Pub closed in 2013 and had been vacant since.

"This fire occurred on a blazing hot summer afternoon and sent two of my firefighters to a hospital with heat-related illnesses," he said in a written statement. "A third-alarm response drew dozens of firefighters and pieces of fire apparatus from neighboring towns to help safely extinguish this blaze. This couple’s selfish actions to defraud their insurance company of hundreds of thousands of dollars put a significant number of lives at risk."

The two firefighters who were injured, Lt. Sherilyn Mullin and Timothy Roye, were sent to the hospital for heat exhaustion. They each missed several days of work due to their injuries.

On April 4, 2022, Harrison, and Cummings pleaded guilty and were sentenced to probation for two years.

Assistant District Attorney Alex Zane prosecuted the case, which was investigated by Hanson Police, Hanson Fire, and the Massachusetts State Police Fire and Explosion Investigation Section.

Staff writer Namu Sampath can be reached at nsampath@enterprisenews.com, or you can follow her on Twitter @namusampath. Thank you, subscribers. You make this coverage possible. If you are not a subscriber, please consider supporting quality local journalism by purchasing a digital or print subscription to The Brockton Enterprise.

This article originally appeared on The Enterprise: Hanson arson: ex-firefighter Alfred Russo sentenced in JJ's Pub fire