Fires in Lewiston: Complete coverage of how the city battled a string of fires and worked to recover.
LEWISTON — A 13-year-old boy charged with three counts of arson in connection to downtown apartment building fires last spring has been released from a juvenile corrections center.
Brody Covey was transferred to a therapeutic residential foster home late last week, according to attorneys for his defense and at the District Attorney’s Office.
An effort was made to move the local boy from Long Creek Youth Development Center in South Portland to a home outside of the city before the start of the school year.
Meanwhile, workers from the Department of Health and Human Services removed Covey’s half-siblings from the Bartlett Street apartment of his mother and stepfather.
An 8th District Court judge is expected to rule in September on a motion argued earlier this month to suppress statements Covey made to a police detective during a May interview.
In that interview, Covey admitted setting a fire on the second floor back porch at 105 Blake St. on April 29.
Covey’s attorney, Allan Lobozzo, argued in court that police neglected to read the then-12-year-old Covey of his legal rights after he became a suspect during the interview and that the teen didn’t understand the consequences of talking to police.
On May 2, three days after fire consumed the Blake Street building along with two other buildings on Bates and Pine streets, leaving 75 people homeless, Lewiston police had gone to the Ramada Inn to talk to witnesses, including Covey and his now stepfather, Charles Epps, where they had been temporarily housed.
Covey was driven to the police station in a police car and seated in a small, concrete-block room alone with a single detective for a videotaped interview. Less than 10 minutes into the interview, the detective asked Covey whether he started the fire. Covey denied the accusation at first. Detective Robert Morin told Covey he “had a right to be angry; anyone would be angry being in there,” living in a condemned building. Covey then admitted to setting the fire, but later had called it an accident. He then changed details about how the fire was set.
Another then-12-year-old boy charged with four counts of arson in an unrelated downtown fire, just days after the May 29 blaze, was moved last month from Long Creek to a residential treatment facility.
A trial management conference is scheduled for Abdi Ibrahim on Monday.
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