2 Men Arrested for Arson Fires in Alameda Charged with Other Crimes

Two men who were arrested for a string of arson fires in Alameda last September have been charged for unrelated crimes, police said today. Andrew Gutierrez, 22, and Stephen Petersen, 27, were charged with arson for allegedly setting seven different fires early on the morning of Sept. 28 that caused $3 million in damage to Alameda homes and businesses.

However, the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office on Oct. 31 dismissed the arson charges against Petersen, an animal rights activist and musician, citing insufficient evidence. Gutierrez still faces five arson counts. Alameda police Lt. Jill Ottaviano said today that on Dec. 11, Gutierrez was charged with rape for a Sept. 19 incident, nine days before the arson fires, in which a woman reported that she was sexually assaulted by a man she didn’t know in her car on Park Street near Jackson Park while she was heavily intoxicated.

Ottaviano said police found Gutierrez’s fingerprints in the woman’s car and eventually identified him as the suspect. Ottaviano said Petersen was charged last week with possession of child pornography based on images that were found on his computer when it was searched by police during the arson investigation. She said police already had a search warrant to inspect Petersen’s home but when officers saw the images, they got a second warrant for the specific purpose of determining if the images were child pornography.

Petersen declined to talk to Alameda police about the child pornography investigation but self-surrendered to Hayward police last Friday and was released on bail, Ottaviano said. Petersen was arraigned on the child pornography charge on Tuesday and is scheduled to return to court on Feb. 11 to possibly enter a plea, she said. Gutierrez is being held in custody in lieu of $4.5 million bail for all of the charges against him and is scheduled to return to court on Feb. 17.

By Bay City News

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