Yakima man accused of setting fire during fight pleads to lesser charges | Crime and courts

A Yakima man accused of starting a fire in an apartment on South First Street has pleaded guilty to reduced charges.

Richard Allen Counts, 20, was initially charged in Yakima County Superior Court with first-degree arson, two counts of fourth-degree assault and third-degree malicious mischief in connection with the August 27, 2023 incident.

That charge was dismissed with prejudice on Sept. 23 after the counts each pleaded guilty to one count of fourth-degree assault and harassment. He was sentenced to 364 days in prison, with all but two days suspended. He was also sentenced to five years probation and was banned from having any contact with the victim in the case.

By dismissing the case in the superior court with prejudice, the prosecution cannot refile it.

Yakima police were called to the 100 block of South First Street around 12:50 a.m. Aug. 27, 2023, after a neighbor called police to report a fight where loud banging noises were heard, according to an affidavit. like something was hitting the walls. The neighbor told the police on the way that something was burning in the apartment on the second floor.

Officers took Counts into custody when they arrived, and his girlfriend was in the apartment with a swollen right lip and cheek, according to the affidavit, and with dried blood on her face and a bruise above her right eye.

There was also smoke in the hallway coming from the apartment, where officers found a bedroom pillow with a burn hole the size of a volleyball, the affidavit said. The police also discovered fire extinguisher residue on the stove.

The incident began earlier that evening with a disagreement at a nearby wine bar and continued as the two walked home, the affidavit said. A neighbor came in after hearing the woman screaming for help and found Counts standing over the woman, who was curled up in a fetal position.

The neighbor stood between Counts and the woman and told him to leave. However, Counts refused, the affidavit states.

The woman alerted the neighbor to the burning pillow, who removed it from the stove and opened the windows to ventilate the apartment, the affidavit states. He said Counts sprayed the stove with a fire extinguisher and threw a lamp from the table, hitting the woman in the chest.

Yakima police said if the fire had spread from the pillow, dozens of building residents would have been at risk.