A former Winfield insurance agent who admitted to federal arson and witness tampering charges was sentenced Wednesday to spend nine years in federal prison.
U.S. District Judge Irene Berger sentenced Jimmie Harper Jr., 36, to spend seven years in prison for arson. The judge also handed down a two-year sentence for witness tampering. She ordered that the sentences run consecutively, one after the other, and said he must pay $320,000 in restitution.
Harper had asked in a memorandum filed by his lawyer on July 14 that Berger sentence him to spend seven years in prison. Federal advisory sentencing guidelines had also recommended about that amount of time.
Harper admitted that he set fire to his home last year inside the Stonegate subdivision in Scott Depot. A Teays Valley volunteer firefighter was injured fighting the blaze.
Harper arranged for someone to buy three QuantumFire 12-button long-range remote firing systems to remotely ignite a fire inside his home at 7 Stonegate Drive. That person hasn't been identified by prosecutors.
Harper moved his valuables, furniture and other items out of his home and put them in a storage unit in Winfield before the fire. He also arranged to be out of town the day of the fire so his house would be empty, he admitted.
One firefighter fell through the floor in the kitchen after trying to search the residence. He sustained minor burns to his lower body, according to Harper's plea deal.
The day after the fire, Harper called in a fire claim to his insurance company, Auto Club Insurance Association, for $624,200 in structural damage and $468,150 in persona property loss.
His lawyer, Ward Morgan, wrote that Harper has no criminal history. He had been a Nationwide Mutual insurance agent with an office in Winfield.
The witness tampering charge stems from a separate incident, after Harper's longtime friend, Seth T. Radcliffe, was charged with kidnapping in Raleigh County.
Radcliffe took his ex-girlfriend from her Coal City home at gunpoint to North Carolina.
Harper admitted that he tried to convince the woman and her mother to provide false testimony when they were called to testify before a grand jury against Radcliffe.
"His efforts to influence the grand jury stemmed from a misguided effort to help his closest friend, not for personal gain," Morgan wrote.
Radcliffe killed himself in May while at Southern Regional Jail, according to Morgan.
Reach Kate White at kate.white@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-1723 or follow @KateLWhite on Twitter.