Judge Jack Zouhary of U.S. District Court in Toledo on Tuesday (April 16) imposed the sentence on Randy Linn, 52, of St. Joe, Ind., (pictured here) who had signed a binding agreement admitting guilt and agreeing to the 20-year sentence in December.

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TOLEDO, Ohio (RNS) An Indiana truck driver and former Marine was sentenced to 20 years in prison and ordered to pay $1.4 million for setting fire to a Toledo-area mosque, a crime that the judge likened to Monday’s Boston Marathon bombings as “assaults on the American spirit.”

Judge Jack Zouhary of U.S. District Court in Toledo on Tuesday (April 16) imposed the sentence on Randy Linn, 52, of St. Joe, Ind., who had signed a binding agreement admitting guilt and agreeing to the 20-year sentence in December. The judge earlier rejected an attempt by Linn to withdraw the plea.

At his sentencing, Linn said he wasn’t himself when he poured gasoline on the prayer room carpet at the Islamic Center of Greater Toledo and set it on fire.

“That day, Sept. 30th, that wasn’t me,” Linn said, “I mean, it was me that did it, but it’s not me usually. I was drinking a lot.”

Randolph Linn, 52, of St. Joe, Ind., photographed by a surveillance camera at the Islamic Center of Greater Toledo. Linn pleaded guilty on Dec. 19 to setting an arson fire at the mosque on Sept. 30. RNS photo courtesy Perrysbury Township Police

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Linn said at a December hearing that he had downed 45 Pabst Blue Ribbon beers before driving two hours from his Indiana home to the mosque, which he had seen during his long-distance hauls. The fire, smoke and resulting water damage from the sprinkler system caused more than $1.4 million in damage and closed the building for six months.

Linn said he had acted spontaneously after seeing a wounded U.S. soldier on television, and blamed Muslims for the soldier’s injuries.

Linn pried open a locked door and walked through the building with a gun. There was nobody in the mosque at the time and he went back to his car and returned with the gas can.

Linn was sentenced on federal charges of intentionally defacing, damaging, and destroying religious property; using a fire to commit a felony; and using and carrying a firearm to commit a crime of violence.

The Islamic Center of Greater Toledo was founded in 1954 and built this Middle Eastern-style mosque in suburban Toledo, Ohio in 1983. A fire that officials labeled as arson damaged the building’s interior on Sept. 30, 2012. It will be at least three months before damage from the blaze and water from sprinklers is repaired, mosque officials said. RNS photo by David Yonke

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Cherrefe Kadri, a Toledo lawyer and president of the Islamic Center, said in a victim’s impact she read to Linn: “We’ve lost a lot, but you’ve lost much more. And I honestly feel sorry for you.”

The judge sentenced Linn to 20 years in prison and five years of supervised release, and ordered him to pay $1,446,810.91.

In a short statement, Linn said he had ignored his wife — now his ex-wife — who warned him not to drink so much.

“I didn’t listen to her. I lost her. I lost my son. … I messed up her life. I messed up my own life,” he said. “Thank God I didn’t hurt anybody at the mosque. I don’t think I would’ve – hopefully I wouldn’t have, I don’t know. And I’m sorry for everything. I hope someday I’ll be forgiven.”

Karen Sechler, Linn’s ex-wife, wiped away tears after the sentencing. She said she filed for divorce two days after his arrest.

“I have felt nothing but love for Muslim people,” she said. “It tore my heart out, what he did to them. He got what he deserved.”

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The Islamic Center of Greater Toledo was founded in 1954 and built this Middle Eastern-style mosque in suburban Toledo, Ohio in 1983. A fire that officials labeled as arson damaged the building’s interior on Sept. 30, 2012. It will be at least three months before damage from the blaze and water from sprinklers is repaired, mosque officials said. RNS photo by David Yonke

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Judge Jack Zouhary of U.S. District Court in Toledo said Randolph Linn, 52, of St. Joe, Ind., was fully competent on Dec. 19 when he pleaded guilty to federal charges related to the Sept. 30 fire at the Islamic Center of Greater Toledo.

The judge confirmed a sentencing date of April 16 for Linn, who was charged with intentionally defacing, damaging, and destroying religious property; using a fire to commit a felony; and using and carrying a firearm to commit a crime of violence.

Linn, who did not testify at the hearing, had filed a motion seeking to withdraw his guilty plea, saying he had signed the plea under duress and that he “did not have the opportunity to discuss defenses, tactics, strategies, or the nature and effect of my guilty plea and sentencing.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney Bridget Brennan contended that Linn had no legal basis to have his plea withdrawn, but was only having “second thoughts” about his decision.

As part of the plea agreement, Linn is expected to be sentenced to 20 years in prison and ordered to pay restitution of more than $1 million.

Linn, a former Marine, testified in December that, after drinking 45 beers, he became enraged when he saw a wounded U.S. soldier on television.

“Every day you turn on the TV you see Muslims killing Americans, trying to blow up stuff,” Linn said at the Dec. 19 hearing. “It was my way, I guess, in trying get some payback for people that got killed, all the Muslims over in the Middle East, you know.”

He testified that he drove two hours to the mosque in Perrysburg, Ohio, that he had seen in his travels as a truck driver, stopping along the way to fill three cans with gas. Security cameras at the mosque caught Linn dressed in camouflage and walking through the empty building with a gun in hand.

He admitted to pouring gasoline on the carpet in the main prayer hall and setting it on fire. The fire and smoke, along with water damage from sprinklers and fire hoses, caused more than $1.5 million in damage and repairs are still under way.

Although there were some “surprises” in Linn’s Dec. 19 testimony — including “the quantity of beer that he had that day” — there was nothing to indicate that Linn was not competent when he entered his guilty plea, Zouhary said.

(David Yonke is the editor of Toledo Faith & Values.)

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In a motion filed Tuesday (Jan. 22) in U.S. District Court in Toledo, Linn said his guilty plea submitted Dec. 19 “was not knowingly, intelligently and voluntarily made, due to my duress and my emotional state at the time of my plea. … I request to have my plea of guilty withdrawn.”

Linn, 52, of St. Joe, Ind., said in the motion that “I did not have the opportunity to discuss defenses, tactics, strategies or the nature and effect of my guilty plea and sentencing. At the time I was under depression over this alleged crime. I made the wrong decision.”

In the Dec. 19 hearing before U.S. District Judge Jack Zouhary, Linn said he drank 45 beers in seven hours on Sept. 30 and “spontaneously” decided to drive 82 miles from St. Joe to Perrysburg, Ohio, where the mosque is located.
He took three firearms with him and stopped in Perrysburg to fill three gas containers, authorities said.

A former marine and a truck driver, Linn said in court that he had driven past the domed mosque at the junction of I-75 and I-475 many times.

The mosque’s security cameras filmed Linn walking through the building, which was empty at the time, with a gun in one hand. He admitted in court that he poured gasoline on the rug in the mosque’s main prayer hall and set it on fire and told the judge that Muslims are “going around killing us.”

Zouhary told Linn that the attack on the mosque was an attack on all places of religion.“You are no better than the terrorists or extremists you sought to punish,” the judge told Linn.

Linn, who is being held at the Milan Detention Facility in Milan, Mich., was initially charged with one count each of intentionally damaging religious property and using fire or explosives in commission of a felony. A federal grand jury last month added a charge of using a firearm to commit a crime of violence.

He pleaded guilty to all three counts as part of a binding agreement, and is likely to be given 20 years in prison when he is sentenced April 16.

Zouhary is also expected to order Linn to pay a $250,000 fine and restitution that may exceed $1 million.

Damage to the mosque from the blaze and from water from the building’s sprinkler system and firefighters’ hoses is estimated at $1.5 million.

Linn’s public defender, Andrew Hart, could not be reached for comment on Wednesday.

(David Yonke is the editor of Toledo Faith & Values)

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Randolph Linn, 52, of St. Joe, Ind., photographed by a surveillance camera at the Islamic Center of Greater Toledo. Linn pleaded guilty on Dec. 19 to setting an arson fire at the mosque on Sept. 30. RNS photo courtesy Perrysbury Township Police

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Randolph Linn, a 52-year-old truck driver and former Marine, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Toledo on Wednesday (Dec. 19) to federal counts of intentionally damaging religious property, using fire or explosives in commission of a felony, and using a firearm to commit a crime of violence.

Linn is expected to be sentenced to 20 years in prison and to pay restitution of $1 million.

“Yes, justice has been served and the Islamic center will be rebuilt and we will meet inside it and continue to do so. But the actual problem hasn’t been dealt with,” said S. Zaheer Hasan, spokesman for the United Muslim Association of Toledo.

He said the real problem is growing animosity toward Muslims. “The arson attack was an isolated incident but it was a product of that hatred,” he said.

The Islamic Center of Greater Toledo was founded in 1954 and built this Middle Eastern-style mosque in suburban Toledo, Ohio in 1983. A fire that officials labeled as arson damaged the building’s interior on Sept. 30, 2012. It will be at least three months before damage from the blaze and water from sprinklers is repaired, mosque officials said. RNS photo by David Yonke

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Mahjabeen Islam, president of the damaged Islamic Center of Greater Toledo, said Linn showed no remorse during the hearing.

Linn told Judge Jack Zouhary that he drank 45 beers before seeing a wounded U.S. soldier on television and spontaneously deciding to drive 82 miles from his home in St. Joe, Ind., to the Toledo suburb of Perrysburg, Ohio.

Linn, who had seen the roadside mosque while hauling his truck, took three firearms with him and filled three gas cans at a gas station, authorities said.

According to the mosque president, Linn told the judge he didn’t know any Muslims personally. “I only know what I hear on the radio and see on Fox News,” he said, according to Islam.

“My feeling is that the media needs to be more responsible,” Islam said. “The combination of ignorance about Muslims and Islam, and hate and alcohol, and then whipping up all of this hatred in the media, is a lethal combination.”

The judge told Linn: “You are no better than the terrorists or extremists you sought to punish.”

Islam said video showed Linn walking through the empty mosque with a gun on Sept. 30 before pouring gasoline in the prayer room and setting it ablaze.

“Had somebody been there, I dread to think about what could have happened because he had a gun,” she said. “If people had been there, it might have been like the Sikh temple shooting (in Wisconsin).”

(David Yonke is the editor of Toledo Faith & Values.)

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