NORWAY — A 21-year-old Paris man was charged Friday with two counts of aggravated attempted murder, arson and burglary for a predawn fire in a Norway home Dec. 5.

Andrew J. Freeman of 32 High St., Apt. 2, was charged at the Androscoggin County Jail in Auburn by Maine Fire Marshal investigator Danny Young. Officials said he is there on unrelated charges.

State fire investigators said Freeman broke into the house of Edgar McCloud and his wife at 684 Round-The-Pond Road and set a couple of fires and left. The McClouds and their granddaughter were asleep inside at the time.

The fires were discovered by McCloud, who extinguished them before there was serious damage, Maine Department of Public Safety spokesman Stephen McCausland said in a statement Friday. No one was injured.

McCausland said Friday night that Freeman and the granddaughter knew each other.

Freeman was arrested at 11 p.m. Dec. 26 on High Street by Paris police on charges of violating a protective order and violating conditions of release, according to Oxford County Sheriff’s Office records. Court documents state that he contacted a local 16-year-old girl on Facebook and walked to her house that day, which he was prohibited from doing.

He was taken to the Oxford County Jail and transferred to the Auburn jail the next day. He is scheduled to appear in 11th District Court in South Paris on Feb. 21 on those charges.

Freeman also has an active protection order against him from four other young women, according to court documents. At least two of them attend Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School in Paris, where Freeman was seen inside on Nov. 1, according to court records. He has since been barred by the court from being there.

ldixon@sunjournal.com

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