Chief’s Son Gets 3 Years for Setting 2 Forest Fires

The 20-year-old son of Cypress’ police chief was sentenced to three years in prison and fined $10,000 Monday for setting two fires that destroyed 7,100 acres of the Cleveland National Forest and caused $2.7 million in damage.

Robert Edward Lowenberg, son of Chief Ronald E. Lowenberg, could be eligible for parole in one year under the sentence imposed by U.S. District Judge James M. Ideman. He faced a maximum sentence of 10 years.

Noting the extensive damage from the fire, Ideman said he hoped that the sentence--one year less than prosecutors had recommended but two years more than defense lawyer Anna Ho had sought--would deter others.

Ho had urged the judge to let the young man serve the mandatory one-year minimum sentence under federal law for arson in a public forest. Ho cited Lowenberg’s history of drug and alcohol addiction and claimed that he has overcome those problems.

Fighting back tears after hearing the sentence, Lowenberg said: “I’m going to go in and do my time, and when I come out I would like to be a help to other people. I’m just going to take the time, and my life from there on is going to be as close to perfect as possible.”

Ronald Lowenberg said he was “heartsick” at the sentence, and Robert Lowenberg’s mother said she felt “terrible.” But neither attacked Ideman’s decision.

“I don’t expect the judge to tell me how to do police work,” said Ronald Lowenberg. “I don’t tell him how to judge.”

The hearing shed little light on the biggest mystery in the case--why Lowenberg set the fires.

The defendant, 19 at the time, went to the forest with a friend last Sept. 9, “got drunk and high” and “didn’t care what happened,” according to the prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Atty. Ronni B. MacLaren.

MacLaren told Ideman that a court-appointed psychiatrist who questioned Lowenberg found him to be suffering from “no mental disorder and with absolutely no justification or excuse for his conduct.”

Lowenberg set two small fires a short time apart, and they combined to form a brush fire that took two weeks to extinguish.

Asked why he set the first fire, Lowenberg told the psychiatrist that he did it “because things looked so much better on drugs.”

Asked about the second fire, Lowenberg said he was “so drunk I don’t know why,” MacLaren said.

Lowenberg was arrested a week after the fire when the friend, Anthony Tafoya, told Forest Service investigators that he watched Lowenberg set the fire. Tafoya said the two friends had gone to the forest to get high and shoot a BB gun.

When questioned, Lowenberg admitted setting the blaze.

About $2.7 million was spent fighting the fire, according to government documents. Known as the Silverado fire because it started in Silverado Canyon, the blaze left at least six firefighters injured.

“Thank goodness no one was killed, but that could have been the result,” Ideman said.

MacLaren said Lowenberg’s good upbringing and strong, close family make his crime “even more reprehensible.”

“All of us who can no longer enjoy the forest have to live with what he’s done,” MacLaren said. “He should have to live with it, too.”

The prosecutor argued that Lowenberg was guilty of “gross wrongdoing” and that his attitude had been one of “selfishness and self-indulgence.”

MacLaren also pointed to Lowenberg’s failure to turn himself in and to his false statements to police at the time of the fire as aggravating factors.

In a brief statement, Lowenberg told the judge that he was sorry and had reformed himself.

“All my problems of the past have been because of drugs, and I have taken care of all the problems that I had.

“At one time, I was a drug user and an alcoholic. I have completely turned my life around. I’m sorry that all this has happened.

“I have straightened my life out. I don’t think that a prison sentence is going to help me. There are turning points in someone’s life, and I think I found it.”

Ideman called the case “difficult.” He did agree, at the request of Ho, to recommend to federal prison authorities that Lowenberg be placed in a camp in California.

“He is clearly camp material,” said Ideman, adding quickly, “maybe not a forestry camp.”

Relatives, clearly grieved at the sentence, did not question it.

“He did what was fair,” said Lowenberg’s grandfather, Maurie Hurley. “We have no squawk.”

Ronald Lowenberg said he would not “second guess” Ideman. He did say he had hoped a psychiatric evaluation that concluded that his son was not a latent pyromaniac and could recover totally from drug and alcohol dependence might have been more persuasive.

Robert Lowenberg’s mother said the judge “did what he had to do.”

“Our biggest fear is that he’ll be put in there and won’t get the treatment he needs,” the mother said. “We’ll give him our support. We’re going to visit and be there, and we’ll be able to supplement the help he’s getting (in prison).”