Man sentenced for Dickson City arson that burned teenager
Sep. 14—A Susquehanna County man will serve no additional jail time for his role in a 2021 arson in Dickson City that left a teenager severely burned.
Laurence Andrew Norton, 34, 6767 state Route 547, Harford, was sentenced Wednesday by Lackawanna County Judge Vito Geroulo to six to 23 months in Lackawanna County Prison for his May 25 guilty plea to one count of reckless burning.
However, Geroulo granted Norton credit for 188 days already spent in jail and said any balance could be served in home confinement.
Colin Peffer, then 17, suffered serious burns when state police say Norton and the boy's father, Jayson Merritt, poured gasoline inside the cab of a box truck parked at a property on Scott Road in Dickson City and set it ablaze on July 8, 2021, to get revenge on the owner.
When the gasoline ignited, the youth was caught in the fireball.
Police said Merritt and Norton dropped off Peffer at Regional Hospital in Scranton before the boy was airlifted to the Lehigh Valley Burn Center in Allentown, where he was put in an induced coma while being treated for second-degree burns.
The boy told investigators Merritt later threatened to put him "in a coffin" if he revealed how he received the burns.
Merritt, 37, also of the Harford area, pleaded guilty in April to reckless burning and was sentenced July 12 by Judge Michael J. Barrasse to 14 months to five years in state prison plus two years of probation.
Norton did not address the court before sentencing, but his attorney, Edmund Scacchitti, made note of the time already served by the defendant and asked Geroulo to consider a restrictive probation sentence.
"I think he has learned his lesson," Scacchitti told the judge.
State police arrested Merritt and Norton on arson, arson conspiracy and other charges last September.
According to the criminal complaint, state police determined the truck fire was deliberately set but received a break in the investigation after Peffer, who originally said his burns happened when he threw a log on a fire in Harford, came forward in August 2021, to report the arson.
In an interview at the Children's Advocacy Center of Northeastern Pennsylvania, Peffer said he didn't know what Merritt and Norton were up to when his father told him to accompany them the day of the arson.
Once they arrived at the Scott Road location and he realized what they planned, Peffer said he confronted them and told them several times to stop, the complaint said.
Peffer told investigators Merritt replied that the owner of the truck owed him $10,000 and he was "doing it for revenge to get his money back," the complaint said.
The teenager said Merritt was standing over him and made the remark about putting him in a coffin when he awoke from his coma at Lehigh Valley, police said.
Although the truck owner died shortly after the fire, an employee at his business told state police Merritt felt the owner owed him money because of problems with a vehicle he purchased, the complaint said.
Geroulo denied a request by the prosecution for $25,000 in restitution for the truck after Scacchitti objected, saying Norton should not be solely responsible when others were involved.
The judge also said it did not appear the restitution issue was raised at Merritt's sentencing and questioned the basis for the amount prosecutors were seeking.
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dsingleton@timesshamrock.com, 570-348-9132.
