BY DAN HILDEBRAN
Crystal Brielle Pinckney, 30, of Starke, was sentenced to nearly three-and-a-half years in prison after pleading to setting a Starke apartment on fire.
According to a September 8, 2023, arrest report, the defendant quickly confessed after police and firefighters were called to the Pine Forest Apartments on West Madison Street.
“While making sure everyone was out of their apartments, a Crystal B. Pinckney made contact with Ofc. Duren,” wrote Starke Police Sgt. David Clancy Jr. in the report. “Pinckney then spontaneously uttered to Ofc. Duren that we should go ahead and place her into the back of the car because she was the one that started the fire.”
County Judge D. Tatum Davis ruled on October 4, 2023, that the defendant did not qualify for participation in the Mental Health Court Program, and on May 15, 2024, Judge James Colaw found the defendant competent to proceed.
Pinckney’s prior record includes battery, petit theft, and robbery.
In addition to imposing the 41.55-month sentence, Colaw ordered the defendant to pay the apartment complex’s owner $134,801.20 in restitution.
The maximum sentence for First-degree arson is 30 years.
