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DA: 'Drunken idiot' gets probation for starting Allentown fire

The Amherst man who admitted to starting a Buffalo apartment building on fire received his sentence Monday.

“Mr. Adler was basically, without being crass here, was a drunken idiot on that night.”

That’s the assessment of Brandon Alder by Erie County District Attorney John Flynn. The night in question involves the early morning hours of July 30 of last year.

That’s when fire destroyed the five-unit apartment building Alder lived in on Franklin Street in Buffalo’s Allentown neighborhood.

While city fire-fighters battled the blaze, Alder watched from outside with friends, who Flynn says brought beer.

“And they were all drinking outside on the front lawn at seven o’clock in the morning while the building’s on fire,” says Flynn.

Fire investigators honed in on Adler after a Snapchat video surfaced. It was posted by Adler that morning, showing a small fire on a couch. In a portion of the video, laughter can be heard. It turned out to be the source of the fire.

“(Adler) and his friend, who were basically drinking all night long set the couch on fire, initially. They then put the fire out in the couch and then they reignited the fire again on the couch a second time,” says Flynn.

Unable to extinguish the second fire, Adler ran out of the building and the fire quickly spread. All five apartments sustained heavy damage. The building is boarded up and unoccupied today.

But even with the damning video Adler shot himself, Flynn says the best his office could do was a fourth degree Arson charges. It means, the fire was reckless but not intentional. To be intentional, explained Flynn, Adler would have had to set fire to the building, not merely something inside the building.

That doesn’t sit well with Adler’s former neighbors. Most lost almost everything they owned. It took them months to relocate and start over from scratch.

"I’ve now been forced to rebuild from absolutely nothing,” says Barry Rebholtz, who ran out of the burning building only wearing a t-shirt.

Another tenant in the building, Angela Lopez, used to have hair to her waist. The fire singed much of it. Today, she wears a short-cropped haircut and says she’s “still pissed” at Adler.

“The whole situation basically changed my life, the trajectory of my life and I just need him to be held accountable,” said Lopez at today’s sentencing hearing.

But what Adler got was five years probation.

Rebholtz and Lopez say they were told by the victim witness advocate and the D-A’s office that there was a commitment for a probation sentence after Adler pled guilty before trial.

Flynn says there was no such commitment and he notes at sentencing, assistant district attorney Paul Glascott asked for jail time.

This is Adler’s first offense and before learning his fate he did express remorse, “It was never my intention to hurt anybody or negatively impact the lives of anybody here in this courtroom and I’m truly sorry that that was what happened.”

But Rebholtz and Lopez feel that given the crime and damage to the lives of people who lived in the apartment building, a stronger punishment was warranted.

“It’s very clear the New York State criminal justice system is set up in favor of the criminals,” says Rebholtz.

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