Accused Eco-Terrorist Appears in Court

The man authorities say is the fire-setting eco-terrorist who burned nearly a dozen luxury homes being built here hardly presented a criminal countenance at a court appearance Tuesday.

He turns out to be a Bible-quoting marketing consultant, a doting grandfather and family man who has been active in his homeowners association, volunteered with the March of Dimes and has served as the spokesman for the Arizona Department of Education.

Still, the FBI is convinced it has its man in 49-year-old Mark Warren Sands, who allegedly told a friend that he had dreamed about burning down a neighbor’s home and then did so. Sands is suspected of being the arsonist who terrorized upscale neighborhoods and set fire to homes under construction here since 1998, leaving behind spray-painted warnings against sprawl: “If You Build, We Will Burn.”

The slightly built Sands, who lives near the construction area, shuffled into U.S. District Court in shackles and wearing a prison-issue green jumpsuit. The balding, bespectacled father of three mouthed “I love you” across the room to his wife, Peggy.

Sands is charged with 22 counts of arson and extortion, according to a federal indictment. The indictment alleges Sands planned and carried out eight arson fires and caused nearly $5 million in damage. In total, 11 such fires have been set across the area in the last three years, but authorities are still investigating the others and have not linked Sands to them.

Sands has been held at the state prison in Florence since his arrest last week. Tuesday’s hearing before District Judge Virginia Mathis was to determine whether Sands would be allowed to be released before his trial, which is scheduled for Aug. 7.

Mathis said she did not want Sands, who works from his home, to be allowed to return there because of its proximity to the scene of the fires. She said the court tried to find a halfway house in the area that would take Sands, but none would accept him because he “failed to have a drug or alcohol problem,” she said.

Sands’ attorney, federal public defender Deborah Euler-Ajayi, told Mathis that friends had offered to take him in. The judge postponed a decision until another detention hearing Friday.

Sands was arrested in April but was released without charges being filed. Authorities called him an “investigative lead” in what is one of Arizona’s most closely watched cases. A multi-agency task force has been working for months to determine who set fire to luxury homes under construction near a vast open space of pristine desert carved out of central Phoenix.

Speculation had been that a gang of mountain-biking eco-terrorists was responsible. That scenario was strengthened after a reporter from the Phoenix New Times newspaper published an interview with a disguised man who claimed to be the arsonist.

On Jan. 19, the night before the interview, the last fire was set.

Sands’ beige stucco home is a block from the Phoenix Mountains Preserve, the desert area being surrounded by newly built luxury homes. The quiet neighborhood of modest homes is a desirable enclave: in the city but close to the preserve’s hundreds of acres of hiking and biking trails.

The first fire was set at a home being built behind Sands’ residence. Police say Sands was observed defacing a sign at a nearby construction site and has been under elaborate surveillance for months at a cost of $40,000 a week.

U.S. Atty. Joseph Welty said investigators persuaded Sands’ best friend, Warren Jerrems, to wear a hidden recording device during a recent hiking trip to the Grand Canyon. According to Welty, Sands eventually told Jerrems that he had set the fires and asked his friend whether he was prepared to lie to a grand jury.

Sands, according to Welty, was discussing the nature of evil with Jerrems and told him: “I’ve had several dreams about that house behind me. They were terrifying dreams. They were dreams about setting it on fire. One night, I did.”

Welty said Sands told Jerrems he set the second fire out of spite because the owner began to rebuild. He said Sands set the third fire at another area to draw attention away from his immediate neighborhood, and that by the fourth blaze, it had become a “campaign.”

Although Sands’ friends portrayed him as an avid hiker, no one in court Tuesday ascribed particularly strong environmental views to Sands.

Welty said that in a letter to one news organization, Sands made reference to the pace at which Arizona’s growth is gobbling up pristine desert, saying: “An acre a minute is obscene.”

Welty said Sands sent notes to news outlets containing biblical references. Test results confirm the presence of Sands’ DNA on at least three envelopes, Welty said.

One began: “Warning! Thou shalt not desecrate God’s creation, Rev. 14:10. Pr. 17:19, We are not yet done. . . . Take your ‘dream’ house out of the Preserve. . . . We won’t hurt neighbors or endanger firefighters. But God’s work has to be done.” It was signed “CSP,” an acronym for Coalition to Save the Preserves, an apparently bogus group.

Nearly a dozen friends packed the courtroom to testify on Sands’ behalf. They painted a picture of a loving father and husband and compassionate and caring co-worker.

According to Joanne Musson, who worked with Sands at a health insurance company, Sands kept a “prayer box” on his desk, in which people could place requests for Sands to pray on their behalf.

The man who some are calling a threat to the community and a terrorist was said to be an usher at his Episcopalian church, a youth soccer referee and a lay marriage counselor.

The case is in federal court because of the extortion charge, which is based on damage to the interstate commerce of the various contractors who were building the homes. If convicted on all counts, Sands faces up to 300 years in prison and $5.5 million in fines.