A man has been sentenced to more than 12 years for setting fire to a Leavenworth church, the U.S. attorney announced Wednesday in a news release.
Carva Lee White, 46, Kansas City, Mo., is the former music director of the Sunflower Missionary Baptist Church. He has been sentenced to 150 months in federal prison for one count of attempted mail fraud and one count of using arson in an attempt to commit mail fraud, according to the release from the office of Lanny Welch, U.S. attorney for Kansas.
White also was ordered to pay $1,000 restitution to the Sunflower Missionary Baptist Church and $374,993 to Church Mutual Insurance Co., of Merrill, Wis.
In a plea entered in December, White admitted that on Oct. 31, 2008, he set fire to the Sunflower Missionary Baptist Church. About a week earlier, White had told the pastor of the church about a plan to burn the building and then collect kickbacks from contractors who would submit inflated bids to do repairs. The church’s insurance would pay for the repairs, according to the release.
On the evening of Oct. 31, 2008, the Leavenworth Fire Department was dispatched to the church, where firefighters discovered a large fire. An investigation by the Kansas Fire Marshal’s Office determined the fire had been intentionally set in various locations in the church. As a result of the fire, Church Mutual Insurance Company mailed a check to the Sunflower Missionary Baptist Church for $103,236.
Welch commended the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Kansas State Fire Marshal’s Office, the Leavenworth Police and Fire Departments, the Leavenworth County Sheriff’s Office and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Marietta Parker and David Smith for their work on the case.
