Man Accused Of Attempted Robbery, Setting 2 Fires Behind Lakewood Business: Prosecutor

LAKEWOOD, NJ — A Lakewood man is accused of setting a pair of fires behind businesses and robbing a man after threatening him with scissors in a string of incidents Thursday evening and early Friday in downtown Lakewood, the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office said Friday.

Ricardo C. Buitron, 21, has been charged with two counts of aggravated arson, robbery, and possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose, Prosecutor Bradley D. Billhimer said. Buitron is being held at the Ocean County Jail pending a detention hearing.

Billhimer said a man walked into Lakewood Police Headquarters about 11:30 p.m. Thursday and told police he had been robbed by a man who approached him as he was walking down the sidewalk in the area of Lexington Avenue and Fourth Street.

The attacker threatened the victim with a pair of scissors and demanded money, but the victim told police he was able to shove the attacker and run into a nearby business on Lexington Avenue, Billhimer said.

The attacker then ran off, the victim told police.

As police began searching for the attacker based on the description provided by the robbery victim, a person flagged down Officer John Ganley on Fourth Street and told Ganley he had seen a man set a fire behind a business, authorities said. The witness gave Ganley the same description as the one provided of the attempted robbery suspect, authorities said.

Ganley investigated and found a cardboard box had been set on fire right behind a business on Fourth Street, authorities said, and he saw a gas can nearby.

The small fire was subsequently extinguished, authorities said.

The prosecutor's office said that as they started to clean up the first fire, they saw a second fire had been set in the same area, with a sweatshirt doused with gasoline. That fire also was extinguished before it could spread to the building, officials said.

The officers could smell gasoline throughout the entire first floor of the three-story commercial and residential structure, Billhimer said.

It was determined that the fires were intentionally set by open flame to an ignitable liquid, he said.

The physical description of the arson suspect matched that of the robbery suspect, and Buitron soon was identified and was arrested by Lakewood police officers in the area of Third Street and Clifton Avenue, Billhimer said.

The prosecutor's office Major Crime-Arson Unit, the Ocean County Fire Marshal’s Office, the Ocean County Sheriff’s Office Crime Scene Investigation Unit, and Lakewood police investigated, he said.